Disk space management is a frequently required knowledge for a Windows user. It deals with the basic to advanced level operations performed on your computer’s disk space, such as creating new volumes, extending volume size, converting between Dynamic and Basic types, and so forth. While we rarely use those advanced operations, there are basic disk operations we most often use.

I will cover the following basic but frequently used topics throughout this article.

• How to create a new volume (Shrink Volume).
• How to increase volume size (Extend Volume).
• And, How to solve a disabled/greyed Extend Volume option.

The instruction works on Windows 8 and above. Note that if you already know any section, you may skip it and continue with the sections you are seeking answers to.

Note: I will accomplish the above topics graphically. Read Managing Hard Disks using PowerShell to manage disks with Powershell, and How To Manage Hard Disks With Command In Windows 10 to manage disks with Command.

Manage Disk on Windows | Shrink New Volume

Follow the steps below to shrink a new volume.

• Go to disk management window: press the Windows Key + R button on your keyboard to open the Run box. Type diskmgmt.msc in the Run Dialog Box and click Enter. Or right-click on This PC icon on your Desktop, click on the Manage option from the menu, and click on Storage >> Disk Management on the computer management window.

• On the Disk Management window, you can see the list of disks and their partitions already available. To create a new volume, right-click on the volume you want to create a new one from, and click on Shrink Volume from the menu. In my case, it is the partition with the volume letter (C:).

• Enter the storage amount of the new volume in MB inside the relevant box. In my case 71,680 MBs for a new volume of 70 GBs space.

• You have shrunk the volume by now. You can see the new unallocated volume on the right side of the volume you created from. To make it usable, you need to allocate it. To do so, right-click on it and select the New Simple Volume option.

• Click Next on the New Simple Volume wizard. On the next window, specify the volume size and click on the Next button. Assign a drive letter on the next page and continue by clicking on the Next button.

• On the Format Partition window, select the file system, type the volume label and click on Next. Finally, click on Finish in the last window.

Now, you must see your new volume colour changed to blue, and it is usable on your computer.

Manage Disk on Windows | Extend Volume Size

It sometimes happens that you need to extend a volume size. For example, your C drive, which stores the operating system, does not have space for additional software you want to install. In such cases, you need to extend its space from other volumes. Follow the below simple steps to extend a volume size.

• On the Disk Management window, right-click on the volume you want to extend its size and click on the Extend Volume option. In my case it is volume C. Prior to this, an unallocated volume must exist on the right side of it, or else the option will be greyed and disabled. Create an unallocated volume using Shrink Volume (described above) and delete that new volume.

• Click Next on the first window that appears. On the Select Disks window, choose the volume(s) you want to add from the Available box at the left and add to the Selected box at the right (see the picture) Consequently, click on the Next button. Finally, click on the Finish button on the last window.

Check the partition you extended. You can see that the volume size increased by the size of the volume you added.

Why Extend Volume option is disabled/greyed?

As we mentioned earlier, sometimes the Extend Volume option is not active, which is not working. It happens when you do not have an unallocated volume at the right of the volume you want to extend. You can usually solve it by shrinking and deleting the volume at the right. But what if the volume is not shrinkable and does not give you an option? This issue appears when there are system-reserved partition(s) or another unchangeable volume(s) at the right side of the volume you extend.

Solutions to disabled/greyed Extend Volume option?

One solution that I cover here is to use third-party software. There is much software out there, but I have used user-friendly software: EaseUS Partition Master.

Follow the below steps to extend your volume space using Ease Partition Master.

• Download the software from HERE, and install it on your computer.

• Launch the software and click on Start Now button.

• The software lists all partitions on your computer (below picture). Let’s go with extending my C volume by space E partition.

• First, you need to delete the E volume to make it unallocated. Right-click on it, and select Delete. Click OK on the confirmation window. The operation will be added to the operation button with a play icon on the top right corner. Click on it to execute the operation and click OK. Wait until it finishes the operation, and click on Finish, afterwards.

• Now, right-click on the target volume (the volume you want to extend), in my case C partition. Choose the Resize/Move option. A new window will appear on which you can select the partition you want. Drag the dot on the tails or head to extend the volume size from the two sides. Look at the visual changes on the top of the window while dragging the handles, and extend the volume accordingly. Even if there are unchangeable volumes in between the two partitions, the software detects them and extends the volume. Click OK when everything is set.

• The operation is added to the Execute Operation button. Click on Execute Operation to run it, and click on OK, consequently.

Some operations in EaseUS Partition Master may require a reboot to apply. Set the operations logically and execute them.

Conclusion

We have reached the end of this article. So far, we have discussed managing disk space on Windows 8, 8.1, 10, and 11. A tricky issue was to solve greyed/disabled extend volume option that we solved using EaseUS Partition Master.

I hope you found it helpful. If you have any questions regarding disk management, please share me in the comment section below.

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The formatting external hard drive is not the same on different operating systems. You can format external hard disk with an easy way in Windows and Linux. But for Mac OS devices is a bit tricky. You may wish to use an external FireWire or USB hard drive to store your Aperture Library, referenced images, or backup your computer files. Here are some suggestions on preparing the external hard drive for best performance with Aperture. Many external hard drives come pre-formatted as FAT 32. This is a native Windows file format that can be read by Mac OS devices but is not ideal for use with Aperture.

Format External Hard Disk on Mac

Make sure your external hard disk is connected to your Mac device correctly and the icon on the desktop appears.

1. Be sure your drive is attached and mounted.
2. If you have already written any data to the drive, back it up before proceeding to the next step.
3. In the Finder, choose Go > Utilities. The /Applications/ Utilities folder will open.
4. Launch Disk Utility.
5. Click the icon for your external hard drive in the sidebar on the left.
6. Or easy search the Disk Utility on the Launcher.

7. Now click the icon for your external hard drive in the sidebar on the left then click the Erase tab along the top of the window.

8. Finally, from the Volume Format menu, choose OS X Extended (Journaled) and type a name for the hard drive. Next step, just click the Erase button the format the hard drive for Mac OS Devices.

The ExFAT format will make the external hard drive compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux devices. But make sure you save remove or disconnect from the computer.

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The storage management or hard disk management is easy with the command line as GUI disk management on Windows. Here we just focus on this topic to manage hard disk using the command on Windows 10 and other Windows operating systems. Manage Hard disk with command-line tool DiskPart.

The Disk Partition Utility (Diskpart) is a command-line tool for managing hard disk in Windows operating system. Diskpart has replaced with FDisk command-line tool which works with the MS-DOS-based operating system.

Manage Hard Disk using Command Line

Diskpart can be used on both command prompt and PowerShell. But, you must well be understanding what you are doing when using Diskpart. It might happen much time which formatted the entire disk with one command. The last one was a Laptop of my friend with lots of memorial photos and videos. Fortunately, we had recovered all data successfully with data recovery software. But take too us much time.

Manage Hard Disk using Command Line in Windows 10: 

1. Open command line or PowerShell.
2. Run DiskPart as Administrator privilege.
3. Clean Hard Disk with Command-Line.
4. Create Partition with Command.
5. Format Hard Disk with Command.
6. Delete Partition.
7. Extend Partition with Command-Line.
8. Shrink Partition with Command.

That’s all you will learn from reading this article about tips to manage hard disk using the command line in the Windows environment. Let’s start it with running DiskPart as administrator privilege on Windows 10. You can use this command on other Windows operating systems as well.

1. Press Windows+R to open the Run and type “diskpart” then press enter to run the DiskPart utility.
2. Click Yes to User Account Control prompt.

1. Create Partition with Command

You may want to list installed hard disks of the system. Just type ‘list disk’ then press enter to display all connected hard disks of your PC. The List disk command only shows the normal hard disks on your computer. If your hard disk is corrupted, it’s not possible to display with DiskPart List Disk command.

1. Type “List Disk” to view all hard disks.

2. In this PC we have two hard disks. You must select the correct disk you want to manage with the command line. Choose the disk with select disk command.

For example, you want to select disk 1. Type “select disk 1” command and press enter. Now the disk one has chosen as the disk you want to manage it with the command line.

To see whether the disk has selected or not, just type “list disk” and see the result. The strick in front of Disk 1 shows that disk one is selected and ready for management.

2. Clean a Partition Using DiskPart

Now clean the disk by ‘Clean’ command.

1. Type “clean” and press enter to clean disk with command.

That’s all command to clean a disk with DiskPart command. Let’s create a new partition with command.

3. Create a Partition with Command

To create a partition with command just type “Create partition primary size=40000″ and press enter. This command will create a 40 GB primary partition from disk 1. You can assign the size of your partition according to your hard disk capacity.

1. Type “create part primary size=50000” then press enter.

2. To check the created partition type ‘List vol’ command. The command will list all volumes. On the below screenshot Volume 3 is the created partition with 39 GB space.

The last Volume 3 is the newly created partition. It is selected and ready to format it.

4. How to Format Partition with Command?

1. Type ‘format fs=ntfs quick’ to format the partition, and type ‘list vol’ to see the formatted partition with NTFS file system.

You can see the result of Diskpart format partition. It shows volume 3 has formatted as NTFS type. Next, assign a letter to the newly formatted partition.

2. Just type “assign letter=f” and press enter. The F letter has assigned to volume 3. Now it appears as F local drive on File Explorer.

Now you have learned creating, formatting and some diskpart commands for managing hard disk with the command line in Windows 10. The next step is using some more DiskPart command to get expert on Diskpart disk management tool.

5. How to Delete a Partition with Command?

1. To delete a partition or volume with command first select volume then type “delete partition.” Like screenshot.

Yes, you can see the result, the partition ‘Volume 3’ has deleted successfully.

6. How to Extend a Partition with Command?

The extended process is to add some more space to existing partition from the free space of a hard disk. To do this, just follow the screenshot.

1. List the volumes with “List vol” command.
2. Type “extend size=10000” to add extra 10 GB to volume 3 from the free spaces of the hard disk.

The ‘Extend size=10000’ will add 10 GB to the Volume 3 partition. If you don’t mention the size, the system will add all free space.

6. How to Shrink a Partition with Command?

It is the best option for a newly purchased laptop that only has one drive on its hard disk. You can use DiskPart shrink command to shrink the extra free spaces of a drive. Shrink a volume is to create unallocated space from free spaces of an existing partition.

1. Type “List vol” to see all volumes.
2. Just type “shrink desired=20000 minimum=10000” then press enter.

The Diskpart shrink command has shrunk 19 GB from the Volume 3 successfully.

Finally, I hope this article helps you manage the hard disk using the command line easy. If you have any issue with disk management or DiskPart commands, please comment us.

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Manage Hard disk with command line tools. Disk Partition Utility (Diskpart) is a command-line tool for managing hard disk in Windows operating system. Diskpart has replaced with fdisk command-line tool which work with MS-DOS based operating system.

Diskpart can be used on both command prompt and PowerShell. But, you must well understanding what you are doing when using Diskpart. It happened too many time for students which formatted the entire disk with one command. The last one was a Lap top with lots of memorial photos and videos. Fortunately we had recovered all data successfully. But takes too much time.

To run the diskpart, press Windows+R button to open the Windows Run and type diskpart then press enter.

How to Create, Format a disk partition?

You may want to list installed hard disks of the system. Simply type ‘list disk’ then press enter.

So, in this PC we have tow hard disks. You must select the exact disk that you want to work with.

To select disk 1, just type ‘select disk 1’ and press enter, then type ‘list disk’ to see whether the disk has selected or not.

Now clean the disk by ‘Clean’ command and create a partition with create partition command. ‘Create partition primary size=40000’ this command will create a 40 GB primary partition from disk 1.

To check the created partition type ‘List vol’ command. The command will list all volumes.

The Volume 3 is the newly created partition. It is selected and ready to format it.

Type ‘format fs=ntfs quick’ to format the partition, and type ‘list vol’ to see the formatted partition with NTFS file system.

Now you have learned creating, formatting and some diskpart commands.

How to Delete a Partition or Volume.

To delete a partition or volume, first select volume then type delete partition. Like below screenshot.

See, the partition ‘Volume 3’ has deleted successfully.

How to Extend a Partition?

Extend is to add some more space to existing partition from the free space of a hard disk. To do this, simply follow the screenshot.

The ‘Extend size=10000’ will add 10 GB to the Volume 3 partition. If you don’t mention the size, the system will add all free space.

How to Shrink a Partition?

Shrink a volume is to create unallocated space from free spaces of an existing partition.

The diskpart has shrunk 19 GB from the Volume 3 successfully.

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