1-Click to Extend C Drive Partition in Windows 11

C drive is running out of space significantly quick

Some users who upgrade to Windows 11 report the C drive faster runs out of space on Windows 11 than on Windows 10. It’s true. You may quickly consume the C drive space and make it insufficient for your system without notice.

Possible points for C drive full quickly on Windows 11: 1. Windows 11 has updated system files and features, which can take up more space than Windows 10. The new UI, widgets, and other features contribute to the increase in storage usage. 2. Windows 11 receives frequent feature updates, cumulative updates, and quality updates, which can temporarily take up significant space during installation. 3. Windows 11 introduces advanced visuals like rounded corners, new animations, and improved graphics for a better user experience, which require additional resources and storage. 4. Features like Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), TPM 2.0 support, and others may reserve more disk space for security configurations and logs.

And they can’t extend C drive via the free space on the hard disk because Disk Management has strict limitations to extend volumes. Many of them confront greyed out Extend Volume errors when they try to save their C drive to get rid of disk warning because if C drive is running out of space, the whole system may run slower or have a frozen issue momentarily.

1-Click extend C drive partition on Windows 11 computer (No need to delete any other partitions)

Honestly, the most direct solution for you is to try disk managing software. This kind of tool usually allows users to use the free space on the disk without formatting or deletion of any drives or data.

AOMEI Partition Assistant is far more than “usual”. This disk manager supports Windows 11/10/8/7 and carries various solutions to extend C drive partition. The fastest function to adjust all free space on your disks is “1-Click Adjust Space” which is flexible to adjust a partition space by simply dragging the dots next to the partitions' head and tail. In this way, you can easily and quickly change the disk layout on the target disks.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click a partition (here is D: partition) you want to adjust space and select "1-Click Adjust Space".

Note: It cannot select unallocated space to adjust because the feature is just for partition space adjustment. If there is unallocated space and you want to use it to expand a partition, you can use the feature "Merge Partition".

Step 2. If you want to use the space on F: to expand D: you can simply drag the dot near the partition F: head backward to shrink the partition F: and enlarge the partition D: simultaneously. Then click "OK". 

You can simultaneously drag the dot near the partition C: tail forward to shrink the partition C: so the D: will also be enlarged with the space of C: at the same time. In this case, you can adjust all partition space (C:, D:, and F:) on the disk.

Step 3. You can preview the operation by viewing the "Pending Operations". To commit the "Pending Operations", please click "Apply" and "Proceed".

Step 4. The process will start and you can check the progress. It might take time to finish the operation.

Step 5. Wait for the operation to be finished. After it is completed successfully, you will find D: is enlarged and both D: and F: are adjusted.

Use system built-in tools to extend C drive in Windows 11

If your hard disk has unallocated space or you can delete other volumes to extend C drive, then system built-in tools can also help you.

Way 1. Get adjacent unallocated space in Disk Management

We need to do is to get unallocated space that is adjacent to C drive. To finish such a task in Disk Management, the only solution is to delete the volume that comes right after the C drive. In most cases, it is the D drive that needs to be deleted and then we can get unallocated space on C drive’s right side.

Before you do:✎...

Copy all your data from your D drive or other drive that will be deleted to an external drive or USB to make a backup.

Step 1. Right-click D drive and select "Delete Volume".

Step 2. After deletion, you will find it becomes unallocated space.

Step 3. Now, you will find the  "Extend Volume" of C drive is enabled and clickable. Follow the wizard and extend C volume.

You can utilize the unallocated space you need to add into C drive, and then using the remaining unallocated space create a new volume and name it D. Now transfer your data back to the D drive from the external drive.

Way 2. Increase C drive via Diskaprt with contiguous unallocated space

When there is a contiguous adjacent unallocated space behind system partition, you can also choose to extend it in Diskpart utility.

Step 1. Open Run dialogue, input diskpart and click OK.

Step 2. Run commands as follows:

list disk select disk n: n refers to the number of the disk that holds C drive. list partition select partition m: m is the number of C drive. extend size= x: x is the size in MB you want to add to the system partition.

Note: Same as the Disk Management, the DiskPart can only extend C drive when there is an adjacent unallocated space on its right side.

To sum up

If you want to quickly and safely extend C drive partition in Windows 11, then the "1-Click Adjust Space" from AOMEI Partition Assistant is the No.1 option. It won't ask users to delete any other partitions, just drag the dot, you can adjust several partitions at once.

Besides the mentioned functions, AOMEI Partition Assistant also supports disk cloning, MBR/GPT data safe conversion, clean junk files, lost data files recovery... And you can choose other advanced editions if you need this tool on multiple computers.