Each time there is less and less free space on drive C. The problem of memory exhaustion is common to all computers, even those with a HDD or SSD with a large amount of free space. At the same time, Windows cannot work normally when there is a shortage of memory, so it is imperative to ensure sufficient space for the system. There are two ways to achieve your goal: remove existing files or increase the disk size. IN this moment I'm more interested in the second direction - increasing disk space.

The problem appears due to one feature of Windows - a gradual increase in the size of the system and the constant addition of temporary files. Over time, system files, as well as temporary files, tend to take up more space. Everyone is guilty of this Windows versions, with no exceptions.

Initially, the lack of space can be corrected by deleting useless programs, temporary files, downloads, etc. All the same, the inevitable situation is when only important applications are left on the disk, and, alas, there is not enough space. Some users give up, but this is not worth doing, since the system begins to process requests very slowly, programs often crash, and errors become the norm.

To continue to use local applications normally, you need to provide enough free space on drive C. So, how to increase the capacity of the C drive? We'll tell you in our article.

How to clean a disk from garbage?

The easiest way to free up space is to remove all junk. If the problem of lack of space has appeared recently, it is still possible to get by only by deleting useless data. For some time this will be enough for normal operation of the system. You need to clean out the garbage in several stages.

Algorithm of actions is given below.

  1. We clean temporary files (they inevitably accumulate when all applications are running). The CCleaner program copes with the task efficiently and quickly. Just download the utility from the link, on the first tab click on the “Analysis” button, and then click on “Cleaning”.
  2. Removing useless files. By default, Windows browsers download all files to the “Downloads” section located on drive C. There may be a lot of unnecessary stuff here: software distributions for installation, outdated files, torrents, etc. It’s worth checking the sections where files are downloaded and deleting them everything is useless.
  3. Uninstalling programs. Many users go through 2, 5 or 10 applications in search of suitable ones. Having found good utility the search stops, but earlier installed programs remain in the system. They should be removed by going to the “Programs and Features” section, menu - “Control Panel”.
  4. Transfer media files to another drive. It is better to store photos, movies, music, games, etc. on drive D. Such files should be cut from drive C and moved to D.

How to increase the size of drive C at the expense of drive D?

Adding free space to logical drive C is real standard means Windows or through applications. The main disadvantage of the first method is the forced formatting of the partition. The programs cope with the same task, but without deleting files, so this option priority.

Using Aomei Partition Assistant

A free utility with a good reputation successfully copes with transferring space and saving data.

Its advantages include:

  • easy setup;
  • the ability to launch several actions at once;
  • reliable operation;
  • Russian interface.

The entire procedure is absolutely safe for your computer and hard drive.

Main functions of the program:

  1. creating and deleting logical drives;
  2. transferring free space between disks;
  3. formatting;
  4. merging, splitting, copying sections.

Of greatest interest to us is the transfer of free space.

To perform it, you should use the instructions:

  • download the application from website;
  • install and run the program;
  • right-click on the disk where there is free space intended for transfer and click on “Resize partition”;
  • Reduce space on drive D to create unallocated space.

Important! The slider should be moved from left to right, the freed volume should appear before the other data on the disk.

  • repeat step 3, but for drive C, and expand its space using the space on the right;
  • In the main window, click on the “Apply” button.

Healthy! The program supports deferred action, which means that no changes occur before clicking “Apply”. Before starting the procedure, all changes can be corrected.

Using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

This is another similar program that is not inferior to the previous one. Has the ability to move space without formatting disks. The only drawback is the English-language interface, but it is intuitive, so it’s quite difficult to get confused.

The method for adding free space to drive C is no different from the previous program. The instructions from the last section also apply to the MiniTool Partition Wizard. Using control points, you first need to reduce one disk, and then increase the other. If you need to allocate precise space, you can specify the desired volume in numbers (indicated in megabytes).

All of the above methods create free space on the C drive, so the reader can independently choose the method he likes. Typically, after the procedure, the system begins to work much faster and failures occur less frequently.

Issue with free space system disk C is very acute for many users. It happens that in the process of work operating system, even if you don’t download anything to drive C, there’s not a lot of free space.

This is due to the fact that your antivirus, like the operating system itself, is updated periodically. Browser caches also eat up free space.

Of course, you can constantly uninstall updates, clear browser caches, transfer the swap file from the system disk, so that free space appears on the system disk.

But all this is only a temporary solution to the problem. It can be radically solved only by increasing the size of drive C. And this can be done at the expense of free space on drive D. How to bite off a piece from it.

In this article you will learn how to increase the size of disk c at the expense of disk d in windows 7 without losing data, and also without installing additional programs.

The process of transferring space from drive D to drive C

First, it opens computer management. To do this, click right click mouse over the “Computer” icon on the desktop or in the “Start” menu and select “Manage” from the menu that opens.

Go to computer management

In the window that opens, select “Disk Management” at the bottom left.

Disk management

Here you will see all your local drives. Free space can be added to drive C by “biting off” from the adjacent drive on the right. In most cases this is drive D.

To do this without losing data, you need to transfer as much information as possible from drive D to other local drives, if any. If they are not there, then it doesn’t matter. We'll make do with what we have.

If possible, remove from drive D everything that you do not particularly need or that can be easily restored. The point is to make as much free space as possible on drive D.

Once you have done this, right-click on it and select “Shrink Volume”.

We compress disk D by the amount that we want to attach to disk C

A window will appear in which you need to indicate how much space you need to “bite off” from drive D. But it is worth considering that this is not the volume that will later be attached to drive C. This is the volume of your drive D after “biting off” free space from it.

The calculation is as follows. For example, the volume of disk D is 150 GB. You want to transfer them to the C drive 50 GB. This means you need to compress it by 100 GB. This will be your D drive in the future, and what remains (50 GB) will be attached to the C drive.

Specify the amount of compressed space in megabytes. (100 GB should be specified as 100000 MB) and click the “Compress” button.

You will see something like this:

Unmarked area. It's your new disk D

A free, unallocated area will appear behind drive D. Right-click on it and select “Create a simple volume.” In the window that appears, click “Next” three times, and then “Finish”, without changing any parameters.

After this, a new one will appear behind drive D local disk. You need to copy to it everything important that remains on drive D before starting this whole procedure.

New disk created

As soon as disk D is cleared of important files, in the “Disk Management” window, right-click on it and select “Delete volume...”. In the warning window that appears, click “Yes”.

After copying everything important from drive D, delete it

An unallocated area will appear in front of drive C, which we will attach to it.

Unallocated area in front of drive C

To do this, right-click on drive C and select “Extend Volume”.

Attaching the unallocated area to drive C

Finally, all you have to do is change the letter of your new drive to the letter D. To do this, right-click on it and select “Change drive letter or drive path..” in the window that opens, click “Change”, select the letter from the list and in all the ones that appear in the windows, click “Yes” (“Ok”).

Specify the compression size in megabytes

If the system displays an error when downloading new files, then you should worry about the capacity of the system storage. There is no need to panic and clear everything stored on your computer. Delete installed components no need. It is enough to understand the methods of increasing the capacity of the system drive C without losing data.

When is it necessary to increase the disk size?

It happens that the system storage medium (often this is C) becomes full. New programs won't install, the system constantly reminds you of low memory, and the color of the local storage turns annoyingly red.

The reason for this may be:

  1. very small amount of allocated memory. When installing an operating system, the HDD must be rationally divided into partitions. It is on drive C that, according to the standard, all programs and games are installed, which are becoming more and more numerous over time. Desktop documents are also stored on the system storage;
  2. Even if most of the memory is allocated to system media, it can fill up very quickly. Unnecessary components, countless installed games and simply irrational use leads to the fullness indicator turning red.

Due to the overload of information, the computer stops functioning normally and refuses to install anything new. Therefore, it is worth increasing the system memory partition.

Video: C drive enlarged

Methods

Expanding system storage capacity is sometimes very simple. But in some cases, it is enough to simply clean the computer by reviewing the information on it. This does not require installation of additional components. Most often, an ordinary user can simply clean the desktop, delete temporary files, or use the command diskmgmt.msc.

Clean desktop

The desktop is best used to simply place shortcuts to your most used programs. But many users create countless folders in which a lot of information is stored. Most often, this information is multimedia in nature, which means it takes up a lot of memory.

To clear a little (or often a lot) of memory, you just need to tidy up your desktop. To do this, move all folders with movies, music and photos to the designated media (D, E). Each HDD section must be used rationally.

Clearing temporary files

Temporary data can also take up the lion's share of system memory.

Therefore, it is worth getting rid of them. Temporary files include information saved by the browser when viewing web pages, namely:

  • visit log;
  • files Cookie;
  • download log;
  • World Wide Web temporary files;
  • site settings;
  • saved passwords;
  • autocomplete.

Such information speeds up the launch of many sites. This is convenient for personal use. But if the computer is a family one, it is better to get rid of them.

There are three simple and convenient ways cleaning them:



  • manual deletion of temporary data. To do this, you need to empty the trash can and independently delete the saved information from the browser you are using. Each of them does this in their own way.
  1. Internet Explorer. You need to clear the log in the window "Internet Options". The section is located in the browser itself in Service;

  2. Opera. You need to get to deleting personal data by Menu – Tools – Delete personal data.

    To select the desired items, you should open Detailed settings;

  3. Firefox. You need to go here Tools – Settings – Privacy.

  • using the function "Disk Cleanup". It helps you get rid of a lot of unused data stored on your drive.

To do this, do the following:


Diskmgmt.msc utility

Using this utility, you can partition, create a new one, delete an unnecessary one, or format the HDD.

Further actions depend on the required task. The storage capacity on the computer can be achieved using another medium:


How to increase the amount of memory on drive C

You can increase the media capacity when the operating system is installed using special programs. Acronis Disk Director is considered the most popular and frequently used for these purposes.

Acronis Disk Director

It does not require special skills and works just like with boot disk, and from the installed software. Acronis Disk Director refers to disk partition managers. Therefore, you need to be careful with it, otherwise there is a chance that absolutely all HDD partitions will be deleted.

To enlarge the media, do the following:

  • create unoccupied space.

To do this, you need to reduce the partition of another drive (for example, D):



So in a simple way you can significantly change the memory capacity of any media.


These methods are very simple to use. They are available to every user who can press a mouse button. Most of them don't even require the use of additional programs. Such simple operations increase the capacity of drive C without losing data. This will require a little time, desire and effort. Try it yourself.

Question from a user

Hello. Not long ago I ran out of space on my Windows disk - and the error “Insufficient space on the system partition of the disk, this may be the reason...” began to appear in the tray next to the clock. The fact is that the C:\ drive actually has little space - only 30 GB, but the other D:\ drive has 420 GB (about 200 GB free). Is it possible to increase the size of drive C at the expense of drive D without losing data?

PS Laptop Acer Aspire 5550, Windows system 8, HDD 500 GB (Seagate, if I'm not confused).

Hello.

Most often, you have to change the disk size when, when installing Windows OS, you incorrectly calculated the required size of the system disk (also when buying a PC - often the disk is not very conveniently divided: either there is only one partition with Windows, or the size of the system partition is very small).

In general, a similar operation to resize partitions can be done even without installing additional programs if you have Windows 7, 8, 10 installed (if XP, use the link to special software for formatting, partitioning hard drives, link below).

I’ll show you with a specific example where and how to press ☺.

Programs for working with hard drives (partitioning, formatting, defragmentation, etc.) -

Increasing the capacity of the C:\ drive

(Relevant for Windows 7,8, 10. Without loss of data and additional programs)

Important: To increase the size of the C:\ drive - you must have free space

on some other partition of the disk (part of which we will take)

1) Disk management

Modern Windows operating systems have a built-in service program for formatting and partitioning disks. It's called - disk management . Of course, the first thing you need to do is open it.

To do this, press the button combination Win+R.

Then the required utility should start...

Disk management

2) Separate part of the free space

Now we need to select a disk partition that has free space and “take away” it to subsequently attach the taken space to the “C:\” drive.

To do this, right-click on the selected partition and select the option (in my example below, I decided to shrink volume H:).

Now you need to specify how much free space you want to take on the disk. In my example below, I took the figure to be 5000 MB (i.e. 5 GB).

After the partition is compressed, you should see unallocated disk space appear (a rectangle with a black stripe on top, see screenshot below). This is the place that can now be attached to another disk partition.

Unallocated area

3) Attach unallocated space to the “C:\” drive

We right-click on the drive to which we want to attach unallocated disk space (in the current example, we attach it to the “C:\” drive), and select the option from the menu "Expand volume" .

Note! If the “Extend volume” option is not active and is grayed out (you cannot click it), read a couple of suggested solutions at the bottom of the article.

Basically, the last step is to agree to the operation by clicking on the “Done” button.

All! Your system disk is now 5000 MB larger. This is Good!

4) What if the expand volume tab on the “C:\” drive is not active?

In some cases, when trying to expand a volume, this option in disk management may not be active (it is simply grayed out and cannot be clicked, example below).

There are two solutions:

  1. Try removing unnecessary partitions used for recovery. As a rule, this is observed more often on laptops where there are special sections from the manufacturer. In my example below, I'll show you how to remove them so that the Extend Volume feature becomes active. Important! In this case, you will disable the ability to restore on your laptop (however, this function is not all that effective and reliable, and rarely helps, but still...).
  2. Another option is to use special. programs for resizing HDD partitions from this article:

So, let me consider the first case...

You must first run command line from the administrator: to do this, open the task manager (button combination Ctrl+Shift+Esc), then click File/new task , enter CMD and press Enter (example below).

  • enter the command and press Enter ;
  • next command list disk(all disks in the system will appear, in the example below there is one disk in the system with the identifier "0");
  • select disk 0- indicate which disk you need to select. In your case, perhaps instead of “0” you need to indicate the disk identifier that you need (screen with an example below).

Next steps:

  • - look at all the partitions that are on this disk;
  • select partition 6- select a specific partition on the disk. Please note that instead of “6” you need to indicate your number (make sure that the message “Section X is selected” appears).

List partition (in my case, it was necessary to delete partitions 6 and 8 (used for recovery) in order for the "Extend volume" tab to become active).

And the last command to delete the selected partition is delete partition override. Important! Be careful, this command will delete the selected section, all information from it will be lost!

To delete the next partition, you need to select it again (for example, select partition 8 and then use the command again to remove delete partition overrid ).

Actually, that's all - the problem is solved.

Most often after purchasing a computer from a user. The store specialists do this specifically for our convenience. Usually one disk is for the operating system and its volume is about 30 gigabytes, and the second is for storing our personal files.

But it happens that space on one of the sections runs out. Especially if it is a disk on which Windows is installed and its volume is not so large. Installing various programs, over time, little space remains, and you don’t want everything on the system disk to be full. So in such a situation you just need increase disk partition, taking free space from another partition, the volume of which is much larger.

By the way, today we will just consider with you, how to increase hard drive, or as they say, increase the disk partition. To do this, we will use the Acronis Disk Director program, in some lessons we have already used it, and today it will help us again.

We launch the program and immediately see a window where all sections are displayed hard drive.

We can see full size disk, as well as how much space is free. I have only 600 megabytes of memory left on the system drive (C:) and now I will increase this partition by another 2 gigabytes. Using my example, you will also learn how to increase hard drives.

So, right-click on the disk whose size you want to increase and select the item in the list that appears "Increase volume size".

The window that opens for settings is the most important. We need to choose the future size of the disk that we are increasing, and also choose from which disks we will “select” free space.

Place a check mark next to the items "Add unallocated space to volume" And "Take free space from other volumes". Now we choose what percentage of memory we will take for the disk section we are increasing. In point “Leave free space on volumes” we indicate, for example, 90 and then 10% of the memory will be taken from other disks for the current partition.

Next, when we have taken free space from other partitions, it needs to be added to the partition that we are increasing. To do this, opposite the “Volume Size” item, click on the top arrow. After everything is configured, click “OK”.

In the screenshot below you can see an approximate picture that you should have.

Now we can look at the hard drive partitions and see what we end up with.

But that's not all, if we are satisfied with everything, we still need to complete this operation To do this, press the button "Apply scheduled operations".

In the window that appears, we double-check everything again, as you can see in my case, 2 gigabytes will be taken from the drive (D:), and they will be added to the drive (C:). If everything is correct, then click the “Continue” button.

The computer will restart and at this time the entire operation will take place. enlarge hard drive. Depending on the volume by which you increase the disk partition, the operation can take several minutes or about an hour. So please be patient.

This concludes this lesson, I hope now you can easily enlarge hard drive using Acronis Disk Director. And if the free space is still quickly filled with various files, then you need to read my new article: . There I talked about all the effective hacks, using which you will free up gigabyte after gigabyte of space on your disk!