AOMEI Partition Assistant
Full Analysis of Cannot Create Partition on Free Space
In this article, we will elaborately analyze 3 situations where you cannot create partiton on free space. Also, corresponding solutions will be shared to help you create new partition on free space successfully.
By Emily / Updated on May 12, 2023
Case 1. Can't create partition on free space
“I had a Windows OS and linux as a dual booter, and several days ago I uninstalled linux to get a free space. However, when you try to create new partition on free space with Disk Management, it comes up with an error saying ‘There is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation’.
>>Cause and solution
In the above case, the “cannot create partition on the free space and not enough space availble on the disk” mainly caused by the limitation of Extended Partition and Disk Management tool. The free space belongs to the extended partition of the disk and it should be a logical drive. For this case, you can follow the steps to get it resolved:
1. Right click the free space volume, and click on “Delete partition...” to delete the free space partition.
2. Delete the free space partition will result in unallocated space which you can create a new partition with.
In a word, to create partition from free space, you should delete the free space to make it an unallocated space and then create a logical partition with the unallocated space.
Case 2. Not able to create new simple volume from free space
Your hard drive has one and only system partition, but there is a large size of free space on the partition and you want to make use of it. When you right-click the free space partition, there is no “New Simple Volume...” option for you and you can’t create partition on free space.
>>Cause and solution
Here, free space is a segment of capacity of a partition which is not in use and you can use it to store data directly. To solve this situation, instead using DM to delete it as an unallocated space and then create partition, you can use the free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard to create partition from this free space directly.
1. Download, install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant.
2. Right click the free space partition, and select “Create Partition”.
3. You can drag the slider to set the partition size or type the exact number. Drive letter can be set as well as its file system etc. Click “OK”.
4. You can preview the result. Click “Apply” to commit the operation.
AOMEI Partition Assistant is a professional partition manager and a great option if you meet the situations that you can’t create partition on free space. In addition, it can help you to solve other problems, such as “Disk Management cannot shrink partition enough” and so on.
Case 3. Cannot create partition on free space is over 2TB
On some Windows forums, we often found some users reported that they cannot create a new partition with free space on a larger disk and the “New Simple Volume” greyed out as shown in the picture below. Specifically, in those cases, the disk space you use to create a new partition is not “free space”, but the “unallocated space”.
About “unallocated space” and “free space”
Both kinds of space refer to the disk space that has not been used. However, they are slightly different.
☞Unallocated space shows blue in the bar in Disk Management. It refers to unused space on the hard disk and it has not been partitioned into a volume or drive. It does not have a file system and you cannot write any data to it. When we shrink or delete primary partitions, we get unallocated space.
☞Free space shows green in the bar in Disk Management. It refers to the unused space in an extended partition, it is available for recording at any time and conversion into logical drive. When we delete volume in extended partitions, we get free space.
>>Cause and solution
The above situation always occurs on the disk that is over 2TB and initialized to be MBR. That’s because the limitations of MBR parititon style,which can only work with 2TB hard disk space at most. Namely, only the first 2TB are usable on large MBR disks, and the rest space will be shown as unallocated space and cannot be used to create new partitions.
In this case, you can convert the large MBR disk to GPT. To finish this conversion without deleting partitions or losing data, you can use the above AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. If it is a system disk, you need to upgrade to the Professional edition.
1. Installa and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Right-click the MBR disk and select “Convert to GPT”.
2. Click on “OK” to confirm the operation.
3. Click on “Apply” to submit the operation.
After converting the disk to GPT, you can create a new partition with the unallocated space now.
Summary
In this post, we have discussed three different cases about “cannot create new partition on free space one by one. No matter which situation you are stuck in now, you will be able to find the corresponding solution.
