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  1. Paragon Partition Manager
  2. Iperation Fishbowl

Partitioning and formatting new hard drives is a pretty straightforward thing. However, repartitioning an existing drive can be a bit trickier, especially if you want to keep the data you have around. Sure, you can always opt to just wipe the entire drive and then partition it, but not everyone would be that open to losing all the available information, and things get even more complicated when you have a massive amount of information that makes traditional backup methods a huge chore.

IPartition is a streamlined macOS utility designed to provide an intuitive and powerful user interface for easily and rapidly partition your Mac’s storage devices, whether they are removable, external or fixed.

This situation is especially pesky since all Macs come, by default, with only one partition with everything on it. Those of users that live and swear by at least two partitions, one for the system and at least one other for information, will instantly format the drive and repartition it. However, many new users start using their machine straight off and are in a bit of a jam when it comes to later partitioning it.

Fortunately, software that can repartition a drive without tossing out all the information on it has been around for quite some time, and iPartition is a fine example.

What it doesiPartition is a program that will let you resize existing partitions, by either shrinking or enlarging them, as well as create new partitions, all this while keeping all your valuable information intact.The program can also do a large variety of other things such as reordering the partitions, and the changing of partition related options.

Everything you do in iPartition is done through a very visually orientated interface, and everything is highly intuitive, provided you have dealt with partitions before and know what they are and how they work.

Resizing existing partitionsResizing existing partitions is made very easy. Simply select the drive you want, then the partition you want changed, then either type in the new desired size in the inspector window, or the partitions tab to visually resize the partition by dragging its end point.

In theory, that is all you need to do, however there are other factors that can make this a bit more complicated.For one thing, you cannot work on the current boot drive. This is an OS X limitation which prevents you from making any changes. So to change anything on that drive you have to boot up from an alternative drive. You can either use a special boot CD, or, if you happen to have another Mac, you can turn the target machine into an expensive external drive using the FireWire Target Mode. Regardless of how you choose to go about it, you must boot from an alternative source to make any changes to your normal boot drive.

Another thing that can interfere with the resizing process, especially shrinking, is fragmentation. While the Finder might report that a volume is half empty, without it actually being an error, there might be information that was fragmented and lies near the end of the volume. This makes it impossible for iPartition to shrink the volume as it would mean losing that information, and the program is designed to keep your information intact.Fortunately the solution is close at hand, and you can easily use a defragmentation utility to move all the information to the beginning of the volume, leaving a nice big, continuous empty chunk of space at the end of the volume, which would allow you to shrink it.

Expanding an existing volume is much simpler since you need free, unpartitioned space for it. Just drag or specify how large you want the partition to be, and, provided that space is indeed available, it will make it so.

Creating new partitionsCreating new partitions is also easy. Tell the program what to name it, what kind of partition you want, how big you want it and where to place it. You can also choose to format the partition, however, iPartition can only format a limited number of different partitions. While you may be able to create a FAT or NTFS partition, the program cannot format it. In fact, the number of partition types that it can format is dwarfed by the number of partitions it can create.

Back-upsThis program works with your information in the most intimate of ways, and, no matter how much care is taken by the developer, there will always be certain risks when meddling with partitions. While resizing of partitions is usually as safe as can be, moving partitions is a bit riskier, even if you only take extraneous factors into consideration. Power shortages, earthquakes and flocks of molting geese can all wreak havoc if they strike while you are performing delicate operations on partitions that are filled with valuable, irreplaceable information. For this reason, backing up is always strongly recommended.

The GoodiPartition makes dealing with partitions easy and as safe as can be. Everything you need is just a few clicks away.

The BadOther than the steep pricetag, there is nothing inherently bad about this application, however, the documentation could be a bit more thorough, and the advanced options could be placed a little out of the way.

The TruthThis program costs a bit much for what it does, especially since there are other programs out there that serve the same function. If you are not bothered by the pricetag, then this program will serve you well, for all your partitioning needs.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:

Position: How Tos - Partition Management - How To Resize Partition in Windows 10/8/7 Without Data Loss? | 3 Ways

Summary
This guide provides three effective solutions to resize partition in Windows 10/8/7/XP witht he help of free partition manager software and Windows built-in Disk Management. You can follow this tutorial to resize, extend, move, shrink or split any partition to make best use of disk space and improve performance.

Table of Contents

  • Method #2: Resize partition with free partition manager

About resizing partition in Windows 10/8/7/XP

Resizing a partition is the process of changing partition's size via extending or shrinking it. You can either increase a partition's size or shrink it based on your needs. Besides, you can also split a partition into two partitions or add free disk space to any existing partition.

A partition, also called drive or volume, is a part of continuous logical space on hard disk. A hard drive can be divided into multiple partitions which can be used to store a variety of files such as operating system and personal data. If your hard drive has very large capacity, and you can create more than one partitions on it, so that you can separate Windows, installed application and individual data by storing files on different partitions.

However, when you partition a hard disk, there might be chances that you are not satisfied with the partition size or number the first time you try. For example, one partition might be too small to hold all your data. If your system partition (Windows drive) is running out of free space, computer may slow down or even cause other issues.

How do I resize a partition in Windows 10 for free? Fortunately, resizing partition in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP becomes a lot easier than previous versions of Windows systems. We can use system built-in tool to resize volume as well as free partition manage to change partition size without data loss. In this article, we'll show you different methods to resize partition in Windows.

There are a number of reasons that users want to change partition size, and here we list the most common ones:

  • To make best use of disk space: Due to the daily increasing of data amount, some partition may be full of data, while some partition still has large free space. You can move free disk space between to take full advantage of space.
  • Low disk space issue appears: You receive error message from Windows, which says 'You are running out of disk space on Windows (C:). To free space on this drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click here…' 'You are running out of disk space on Recovery (D:). Click here to see if you can free space on this drive.' Deleting files is not recommended on system partition, for you may delete vital system files and cause system crash. In such situation, you can extend partition to fix the issue.
  • There is only one big partition on hard disk. When you buy a new PC, the hard drive is divided into one big partition. You can shrink this volume and create a new partition on unallocated space.
  • You want to dual-booting compute. You may want to install another operating system such as Ubuntu on same hard drive, but the partition does not have enough room. Thus you need to extend partition for the installation of new operating system.

Method #1: Resize partition using Disk Management

Disk Management is a Windows built-in utility, first introduced in Windows XP for the purpose of replacing fdisk command. It allows users to view and manage disk volumes on computer. Users can view disk layout, file system, status, capacity, type, etc. Besides, it allows users to create, delete, format extend or shrink partition with easy steps. Now we'll show you how to resize partition in Windows Disk Management.

Step 1. Open Disk Management: Go to desktop and right-click on This PC ('Computer' in Windows 7) icon and click Manage option from context menu. Click Disk Management under Storage from the Computer Management window.

Step 2. Choose the partition you want to resize, right-click on it and select 'Shrink Volume' option. If you want to increase the partition size, then choose 'Extend Partition'.

Step 3. Input the space you want to change and click 'Shrink button'. When you enter the amount of space to shrink, please note the unit is MB, for example, if you want to shrink 10GB from this volume, you should input 10240.


Method #2: Resize partition with free partition manager

This solution gives three examples to show how to extend and shrink partition as well as add free space to an existing partition without losing data. In this section, we use a free partition manager program to complete these tasks.

Free Download free partition manager to resize partition in Windows

DiskGenius Free is high-end Windows partition manager software, and it is compatible with all versions of Windows systems including PC and server OS. It allows users to create, format, delete and convert partition; it is also able to move, resize, extend, shrink and split partition without damaging a single bit of data.

  • It is supportive over different file systems, including NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, FAT12, FAT16, Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4. Thus you can resize partitions formatted into these filesystems.
  • Support resizing partition on both MBR and GPT disks.
  • Add unallocated space to any existing partition without data loss.
  • Create WinPE bootable disk so that you can manage disk and partition when system fails to boot.
  • Recover deleted or lost files & partitions from hard drive, USB disk and virtual disk.

Example #1: Extend partition without data loss

This guide below will extend a partition by moving free space from one partition to another without damaging existing data, and steps below also apply to extend C drive.

Step 1. Download and install DiskGenius Free Edition on your computer. Run the software and you can see its interface showing all partitions and disks on your computer with detailed parameters.

Step 2. Find and right-click on the partition you want to increase size and select 'Extend Partition' from the displayed menu.

Step 3. Select the partition which contains enough free space and click 'OK', so that you can move free disk space from this volume.

Step 4. Set disk space you want to move between partitions. You can either drag the partition or enter exact number to decide how much free space you want to transfer. Then click 'Start' button.

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Step 5. The program starts to resize partition based on your settings. Wait for the process to complete.

Example #2: Shrink partition without losing data

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This tutorial shows you how to shrink a partition without data loss. The disk space shrunk from the disk can be added to other partitions, kept unallocated or created new partition.

Step 1. Right-click on the partition you want to shrink and select 'Resize Partition' from context menu.

Step 2. On the Resize Partition window you can set disk space you want to decrease.

You have three options on the disk space cut from the big partition: 'Create New Partition', 'Keep Unallocated' and 'Merge to Local Disk'. You can make the decision in line with your own requirement.

Step 3. Click 'Start' button and the program starts to resize the partition based on your settings. Click 'Complete' button when the process finishes.

Example #3: Add unallocated space to an existing partition

Since system cannot store data on free/unallocated disk space, you need to create new partition on it or add it to current partition so that you can make use of this disk area. Now we'll show you how to add unallocated space to an existing partition without affecting existing data.

Step 1. Launch DiskGenius free version from your PC, right-click on the unallocated disk space and select 'Allocate Free Space To'. Then you can choose which partition to add this free space.

Step 2. DiskGenius prompts operations to be done. Click 'Yes' and it starts adding unallocated space to partition.

Partition wall

Method #3: Resize partition via repartitioning hard drive

Repartitioning a hard drive which is not properly partitioned is another solution to change partition size and partition number. During partitioning hard drive you can set partition type, number, size, volume name, drive letter, etc. thus you can arrange partition according to your needs.

Disk partitioning will delete all current partitions and data before creating new volumes, thus you'll lose all data on the disk which already contains volumes. On this occasion, you need to backup data before repartitioning hard drive. Besides, you also need to reinstall Windows if the disk to be partitioned is the one where Windows is installed.

Paragon Partition Manager

Before partitioning hard drive, you should plan partition layout in advance, for example, which partition table to use, how many partitions you need and what the partition size you want, etc. As to tools to partition/repartition a disk you can use free partition manager which makes the process intuitive and very simple. You can complete the process with several clicks.

Step 1. Connect the hard drive you want to repartition and launch DiskGenius Free Edition.

Step 2. Select the disk to be partitioned and click 'Quick Partition' button from the toolbar.

Step 3. Select partition number, size, type, 4K alignment, etc. and click 'OK' button. Wait for a couple of seconds and the disk will be partitioned successfully.


The do's and don'ts

Though the partition resizing process is easy and does not cause data loss, there are some things you should pay attention to when resizing partition for data security.

Iperation fishbowl
  • Backup data all data on partitions you want to resize. Though Disk Management and free partition manager changes partition size without losing data, there are still chances you will lose valuable data if the process gets interrupted due to certain causes.
  • While resizing partition, do not read or write data to the partition being resized, especially when the process has to move files.
  • The resizing process may take long when partition has large capacity and contains large amount of data. Make sure your computer won't enter hibernate or sleep mode.
  • Make sure the partition you want to extend or shrink does not contain errors, or the resize process might be blocked by these errors.
  • Do not shun down before the resizing partition complete, and make sure there is not sudden power failure during resizing process.

Iperation Fishbowl

Conclusion

As we've mentioned it is surprisingly easy to resize partition in Windows 10/8/7/XP, and you can either extend or shrink partition depending on your requirement. Both Disk Management and DiskGenius Free Edition can help you resize Windows partition, but the latter one works more efficiently when dealing with complex situations. Don't be afraid to do it, but also don't go overhead. Resizing a partition which contains errors may lead to severe issues such as data loss. If you have any questions or need help on resizing partition in Windows 10, please feel free to email our support team.