extending partition size (windows7)

jlk

Solid State Member
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17
hey, i want to make my main partition bigger. i had no problems downsizing the backup partition but then there was no option to extend the main one. ive read that you cant extend contiguous space with the built in windows one, is that why? surely i can make it bigger somehow with 3rd party software? cheers
 
To my knowledge, you simply can't extend a partition that has another partition allocated after it. You would need to delete the second partition to get unallocated space, extend the first partition, then re-allocate/format the space for the secondary partition. The data on the second partition is physically written to the drive at the start of the second partition. Windows Disk Management, or any other software I'm aware of, cannot 'shift' the data down to make room for the additional space needed for the first partition.
 
no there is unallocated space, that bit was easy to do. but i cant now extend the partition i use for some reason
 
I imagine that's because the unallocated space is located after the second partition right?
 
Try using GParted. It's a nice, powerful graphical utility that you can just drag-and-drop things to the size they need to be.
 
im sorry, but could you put that in simpler terms?

edit: i will try and download GParted soon and report back as to how it went, thanks
 
sorry this has taken me ages to get to it, been busy. i downloaded gparted from the site, but was really unclear as to how to actually get it started. from looking at the website, it seems to be more for linux than windows. though i know it must do windows as well somewhere, as i saw a post somewhere on the internet about how using it meant having to repair windows with the repair cd which i dont have as this was already on the laptop when i bought it. i dont understand how there isnt an easier way to do this
 
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