AOMEI Partition Assistant
Solved: Extend Volume Greyed out in Windows 11
Learn why “Extend Volume greyed out” Windows 11 and how to fix this issue with Disk Management and a professional tool.
By Lucas / Updated on May 12, 2023
Scenario: Extend volume is not enabled in Windows 11
"Hi, I want to extend the volume size of C: drive in Windows 11 for the 22H2 update, but the “Extend volume” button is not enabled in Disk Management. Please let me know, what I can do about it."
In case your Windows 11 PC is running low on disk space and you receive a warning due to insufficient storage for saving new files or programs, you can manage your data by extending the partition. To facilitate this process, Microsoft has included an "Extend Volume" feature within the built-in Disk Management tool.
The Extend Volume function enables users to enlarge a partition on their Windows 11 computer. However, as the case shows, some users may encounter disappointment upon discovering that the option to extend the volume appears greyed out in Windows 11.
Why “Extend Volume greyed out” in Windows 11 Disk Management?
In scenario, when the user opened Disk Management to extend the C drive, the “Extend Volume” button is greyed out in the right-click menu, which restricts the user to adjust the low-space drive.
In fact, Disk Management only allows users to execute this feature when there’s an unallocated space right behind the target drive.
• 1. there’s no unallocated space
• 2. the unallocated space isn’t adjacent to the target drive
• 3. the file system of low space drive isn’t NTFS or RAW
Then, the “Extend Volume” will be disabled.
How to fix “Extend Volume” greyed out in Windows 11
For the “Extend Volume” button only available in a specific condition, we’ll introduce how to meet those conditions to use Disk Management to extend C drive, and then, there’s a more practical tool for you to extend C drive in some easier and safer methods
Way 1. Extend drive via deleting volume in Disk Management
We can manually create an unallocated space that is right behind the C drive to enable the “Extend Volume” button.
Step 1. Right-click the “Start” button and select “Disk Management” to open it.
Step 2. Right-click E drive (or the drive right behind the drive you wish to extend), and choose “Delete Volume”.
Step 3. Click “Yes” in the warning window to delete all on this drive, then this drive will become an unallocated space right behind the C drive, and the “Extend Volume” of the C drive will be enabled.
Way 2. Extend low space C drive without data loss
Although you can solve “Extend volume” greyed out Windows 11, you’ll have to delete all your data and files on the other drive. No one would like to lose data, and a backup needs time, if you’re urgent to extend a low free space drive, it couldn’t be a nice choice.
Fortunately, a pragmatic disk manager—AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional can do this job quickly and safely. You won’t lose any data during the process, and it has different features that allow you to extend any drive with or without an unallocated space right behind the target drive.
Let’s see how to use this efficient tool to extend the C drive in 3 different situations.
▶ 1. Use a nonadjacent unallocated space on your disk
If your disk does have unallocated space, but it isn’t adjacent to the C drive, you can use “Merge Partitions” to directly add this space to the C drive.
Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the partition you want to add the unallocated space to, then choose "Advanced" and “Merge Partitions”.
Step 2. Select the unallocated space and then click “OK”.
Step 3. In the new window, the size of the partition has been increased. To operate, please click “Apply”.
▶ 2. Allocate free space from another drive without any data loss
AOMEI Partition Assistant can help users allocate free space on another drive to the target drive without asking to delete anything.
Step 1. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant, right-click a drive with much free space and click "Allocate Free Space".
Step 2. In the new window, you can specify the space size and target partition. If it’s C drive, you need to select C drive from the given list, and click “OK”.
Step 3. Click “Proceed” and “Apply” to execute.
After that, a part of the free space on the D drive will be added to the C drive.
▶ 3. The file system of low space drive isn’t NTFS
Only the NTFS drive can be adjusted in the Disk Management, but even if you have a FAT32 drive and you don’t want to convert it to NTFS, AOMEI Partition Assistant can also use it to allocate its free space to the C drive(NTFS). The Operation is just the same as the NTFS drive to NTFS drive.
Step 1. Right-click a drive with free space, then click "Allocate Free Space".
Step 2. Adjust the space size and target partition, and click “OK”.
Step 3. Click “Apply” to execute.
1. If the partition is formatted with exFAT or RAW, you need to format it to NTFS.
2. MBR disk only supports 2TB, the space beyond 2TB will be unallocated and can’t be used to the existing partition, so the “Extend Volume” is greyed out, you’ll need to convert your disk to a GPT partition table.
Ending line
To solve in Disk Management “Extend Volume” greyed out in Windows 11, we introduced some methods in different situations, have you found anyone suitable for you? If you have other problems with managing your disks and partitions, you can also rely on AOMEI Partition Assistant. It can migrate OS without reinstalling, move installed programs without reinstallation, clone disk, create Windows to GO USB to run Windows 11 on any PC, etc.
