AOMEI Partition Assistant
The Best Free Disk Partition Magic for Windows
There’re multiple brands of free disk partition magic for Windows on the market but which to choose when you need to partition a new SSD or HDD? Read on. In this post, a top-notched free disk partition utility will be recommended to get it done with ease.
By Michael / Updated on May 12, 2023
Why need free disk partition magic for Windows 11/10/8/7?
A free disk partition magic usually contains many useful features including partition creation, partition extension, partition format, and so on. When you buy a new HDD or SSD, you need to initialize it first so that it becomes usable. But it's not enough since there's only unallocated space after the initialization. What you should do next is to create partitions from the unallocated space; or sometimes, you find your HDD or SSD is not properly partitioned, for example, one of the partitions is not big enough. In this case, many people will use Windows built-in disk partition magic - Disk Management - to extend the volume by combining the partition with a piece of unallocated space.
What's the best free partition software？
As mentioned above, Disk Management is a reliable tool for disk partitioning in most cases. However, it's not the best one yet. Sometimes, people complain that when trying extending a partition, the option Extend Volume is greyed out. Why does this happen? Actually, to use Disk Management to enlarge a partition, the piece of unallocated space should meet 2 requirements - first, it should be adjacent to the target partition; second, it should be on the right side of it. So, if there're other partitions between the partition and the unallocated space, then, you cannot perform the volume extension.
Thus, here, I recommend another more powerful hard disk partition magic - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard - to help you out. With this utility, you can move a partition and make it contiguous to unallocated space so that you can extend the volume with Disk Management. More than partition moving, other features including partition format, disk initialization, and partition creation are also available.
What to do when the option "Extend Volume" is greyed out in Disk Management? Try the AOMEI freeware to resolve it flawlessly!
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard and wait until the info of your disk appears on the home interface. Right-click on the partition that's between the partition you want to extend and unallocated space. Then, select "Move Partition".
Step 2. Drag the obstacle partition to the right side as the screenshot shows and click on "OK".
Step 3. After going back to the home interface, you'll find the positions of the partition you need to extend and the unallocated space are contiguous to each other. Now, you can click on "Apply" to make the changes take effect.
Go to Disk Management and you'll find the "Extend Volume" option works again.
Alternative to Disk Management for partition extension
You may think it's a little bit time-consuming and complex to switch between Disk Management and a free disk partition magic in Windows when you want to extend a partition. To make everything much easier, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard provides a more advanced feature - "Merge Partitions" - to help combine a partition with unallocated space regardless of their positions.
1. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, right-click a partition, choose “Advanced” and select “Merge Partition”.
2. Tick both the partition and the unallocated space and hit "OK" to proceed.
3. Click on "Apply" to start the combination.
In a few seconds, you'll find the partition has become bigger.
Conclusion
What's the best free disk partition magic in Windows on the market? When it comes to disk partitioning, most of you will think of Disk Management. Indeed, it's a reliable and good utility to some extent. However, it has limits. For example, you may find the option "Extend Volume" greyed out when you need to extend a partition. This is because the partition and the unallocated space are is not contiguous to each other. To resolve this issue, a third-party hard disk partition magic free -AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard - is introduced.
With it, you can move the partition to make it and the unallocated space next to each other. Moreover, the AOMEI product offers an even more powerful and efficient feature to merge a partition and unallocated space regardless of their positions. If you want to enjoy other features including splitting partitions and free space allocation, you can upgrade this software to its Pro edition.
