 Hello everybody! From this video, you'll learn how to extend disk C if the extend volume button is inactive and how to increase your disk size without losing data. Most of the time, it will concern local disk C as it is usually the system partition that runs out of space first. Many users face this problem. The extend volume button appears to be grayed out when they try to increase the size of a partition. The most common reason is that the unallocated space is situated on another physical disk, and this is when extension operations are not possible. The unallocated disk space and the disk you want to extend should be located on the same physical disk so that they may interact with each other. What is more, the unallocated disk space should be located to the right of the partition that you would like to extend. Well, the first method of extending disk C is without using third-party software tools, that is, with integrated Windows features only. The built-in disk management tool has rather limited functionality in comparison with other utilities, but it will suffice if all you need is to change the volume size. The biggest disadvantage of this method is that you'll have to remove all the information from disk D. The only way you can increase the size of a partition with Windows tools is by making use of unallocated disk space. So let's start. Right-click on the Start menu and choose Disk Management from the list. We can see the partition structure. There are two volumes, C and D. If you want to extend disk C, you'll have to delete disk D completely. Yes, I mean delete, not shrink. If you choose shrinking, the free space that appears will be located to the right of the shrunk partition, and so it will not be adjacent to partition C. This little but important fact prevents us from extending volume C at the expense of volume D by way of shrinking. So right-click on it and choose Delete Volume from the menu. Click OK. When the partition is deleted, you can see that the unallocated space appeared to the right of the partition which you would like to extend, and it is situated on the same physical disk. In our channel and blog, you will find solutions to any problem, from installing an operating system or configuring it to fixing possible bugs and errors or optimizing mobile gadgets. Our specialists will answer any questions you ask in your comments under the videos or articles. You can also remove partitions with the help of the command prompt using the Disk Part Utility. The most important thing is to be careful and make sure that you don't confuse partition numbers, otherwise, important data can be lost. Here is what you do. Search the command prompt as administrator. Type the command Disk Part and press Enter. After that, type the command ListDisk. Now you can see the list of all disks available on this computer. It is important to remember that the numbers start from 0 instead of 1, so your first disk is marked as Disk0. Now type the command SelectDisk and add the number of the disks you want to remove. Be careful and select the proper disk number. Follow it by typing List Partition command. Now you see all the partitions available on this computer. To understand which partition you need, open Disk Management. You can check the disk by looking at its volume. And it appears that we should find DiskD, which has this particular size. Let's get back to Disk Part. Now we can see that the partition we need has this particular number and this particular size. Run the command SelectPartition. After you selected the partition, type the following command DeletePartition. Now that partition is gone. Have a look in the Disk Management window and you will see there is some new unallocated space there. Then right-click on Disk C and choose Extend Volume. The Extend Volume Wizard opens. Click Next. Here we add some disk space from that unallocated space. For example, let us set about 7GB. Click Next and Finish. As you can see, now Disk C has increased in size. To create Disk D again, right-click on the remaining unallocated space and select New Simple Volume. Assign the driver letter D, click Next, Format it in NTFS, click Finish. As a result, Disk C has increased and Disk D has become smaller. And here is the second method. It is good for situations when you have important data on Disk D, but you need to use some of its free space to extend Disk C. Unfortunately, integrated Windows tools cannot help you, so you will need some additional software. For illustration, I'll be using LMA Partition Assistance Standard. Go to the program's official website and download it. As you might guess, I have already done it in advance. There shouldn't be any problems for you to download it as well before you actually begin the extension process. Open the program. Here, we can also see two partitions. But unlike Windows Disk Management, this software lets us increase the size of Disk C at the expense of Disk D without losing data stored on Disk D. Here is what you do. Right-click on Disk D and choose to resize partition. Specify the required number of gigabytes that you would like to add to Disk C later. Click OK. Now, some unallocated space appears. Right-click on it and select Merge Partitions. In the window that opens, select the Disk Partition to Merge to. In our case, that is Disk C. Click OK. Apply. In the window that opens, click Go. And then OK. This process takes some time, and then the computer will restart. Now, everything is ready and the operations were successful. When you check it, you will see that Disk C has become bigger, while Disk D is now smaller, and you haven't lost any data there. But even if some information was removed accidentally, while you were extending a volume, resizing partitions, creating new partitions or formatting them, you can still have it back with the help of Hetman Partition Recovery. There is a special video tutorial covering every step of the recovery process in its smallest details, so you are welcome to check the link below. And that is all for now. Hit the Like button and subscribe to our channel. Leave comments to ask questions. Thank you for watching and good luck.