Help Yourself Centre How to Expand a Windows 7 Partition

Expanding a Windows 7 Partition
After you install a hard drive, you need to format and partition the space. Instead of creating an additional partition on your hard drive, you can use the Windows 7 Disk Management utility to add the extra hard drive space to your existing volume. This means that instead of having a “C” and “D” drive, the space that would normally be on the “D” drive is added to the “C” partition. The Windows 7 Disk Management system also allows you to shrink partitions, but this is primarily used if you want to dual boot your computer.

Opening Windows 7 Disk Management
The Disk Management tool is located in your Windows Control Panel. Use the following steps to open your Disk Management utility:

• Click the Windows “Orb” button and click “Control Panel.”
• Click the link labeled “System and Security.”
• Click “Administrative Tools” and then double-click “Computer Management.”
• Click “Disk Management” in the left side of the window.

How to Use Disk Management to Expand Your Partition Space
When you first open the utility, you see a large black block in the details section of your disk partitions. Blocks labeled in black are free space available for storage and partitioning.

To start the addition of partition space on your drive, right-click your “C” drive (or the drive on which you want to add space) and select “Expand” from the menu list.

This opens a new configuration window.

In the opened window, there are three main text boxes that display your hard drive space. The “Total Volume Size” shows the current size for your hard drive settings. The next text box labeled “Maximum Available Space” is the total free space you can add to your partition. This should be the same number you saw when you reviewed the black “Free Space” block after you first opened Disk Management.

The last text box is where you set the expansion size. In “Select Amount of Space,” enter the free space you want to add to your partition. Windows sets the default value to the total amount of free space available on your computer.

Note that the values are set in megabytes, so you must convert to gigabytes. 1,000 megabytes are in a gigabyte, so multiply 1,000 times the amount of gigabytes you want to add to get your total space. For instance, if you want to add 15 gigabytes to your partition, you enter “15000” into the last text box.

Click “Next” and then “Finish” in the final screen. You’re returned to the main Disk Management window. Your partition is expanded, and you can now use that extra hard drive space for your files and programs.