Diskpart Resize Partition in Windows

by Jane / Saturday, February 04, 2017

With the help of diskpart.exe in Windows 7, it's easy to resize partition and mange disk problems. Resize partition, to be more specific, shrink partition, extend partition, merge partition, move free space or unallocated space, things like that, or mange disk problems like: convert MBR to GPT, or convert GPT to MBR; NTFS to FAT32, or FAT32 to NTFS. Diskpart.exe makes things easier and faster than most of partition software, but it cannot keep data intact when performing many tasks, third-party partition magic software, on the other hand, can keep data safe under all circumstance.

Situation: My C Drive is showing Red in Windows 7, C Drive gets full without reason, is it low disk space problem on C Drive? Or is it getting C Drive full because of Virus? What's the solution? How to resolve this?

Press Win+R to open Windows Run Box and type diskpart, press Enter to run diskpart.exe in a short time. And Then type the commands we listed below in order:

  1. list volume
  2. select volume ###
  3. extend
Main interface

Click on Start bottom/ windows bottom, type diskpart, right-click on diskpart.exe, choose Run As administrator to run diskpart.

  1. list volume
  2. select volume 1 (or volume 2, depends on which partition you want to shrink)
  3. shrink desired=20480 (means how much space you want to shrink from the partition)
  4. exit
Main interface

There are many useful commands in diskpart to better manage disk. it's very easy to format, convert between different disk type or file system.

Diskpart command line to format partition

  1. List volume
  2. select volume ###
  3. format fs=ntfs quick label= label name
Main interface

GPT can be converted to MBR disk by typing following commands in diskpart, before converting ,make sure there's no partition or volume in this disk, if you have files in this disk, back them up, or use Partition Expert to do the conversion without data loss, which will listed in the end of this page. Therefore, use list volume to see if any partitions still in use.

  1. List volume
  2. list disk
  3. select disk ###
  4. convert mbr
  5. exit
Main interface

Convert MBR to GPT

Steps are the same, but change convert mbr to convert gpt, and exit.

"Diskpart Cannot Extend Partitions beyond 2TB"

If you have this error shows when running diskpart, you can use command line to convert MBR to GPT disk.
see why diskpart fails to extend C Drive

Can diskpart extend primary partition in Windows 7?

Yes, if your data partition is primary partition , you can use diskpart to extend primary partition in Windows 7

In this passage, we shared how to use command line diskpart to resize partition and manage disk. It's easy to understand, every command has guide and introductions, but if are using an old disk, or you already stored many files in large size, then diskpart is not the best option,

Try Partition Expert to do the same job without data loss.

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