When you want to resize partition in Windows 11, you may find it’s easy to meet shrink/extend volume greyed out issue in Disk Management. In this passage, you will find a free Windows 11 partition manager to take the place of Disk Management in resizing partition.
✍ Scenario one: "I just got my new PC with Win 11 which is only have one partition (C drive) that is about 1.2TB. I have currently used only 250GB. How to shrink C drive partition to 300GB and leave the rest 900GB as unallocated?"
✍ Scenario two: "I upgraded the internal SSD drive to 1TB and successfully restored my original OS, however there is a 454.57GB unallocated space as seen below. I want to add it to the primary partition. What do I do?"
From the scenarios described above, we can see different users have different reasons for Windows 11 disk management resize partition. We have concluded the main factors that trigger the adjustment of partition size in Windows 11.
For shrinking a partition, it usually occurs when you want to release some free space from a partition with enough storage room to create a new drive or to enlarge other small partitions.
For extending a partition, it's often seen when one partition is running out of space and can't store any new data, especially when C drive is full, you may be eager to increase the size of it, otherwise, your computer will be in slow performance.
When you have the needs to resize partition Windows 11, Disk Management or DiskPart comes to your mind. Both of them are Windows built-in features, allowing you to manage your computer hard drive, like shrinking/extending partition, formatting partition, delete partition, etc, However, it is generally accepted that DiskPart command line is quite difficult, if you are not proficient in it, it's easy to cause the operation failure, or system error.
Compared with DiskPart, Disk Management is more friendly to users. Just right-click Start screen and select "Disk Management" to enter the interface of this tool.
For shrinking a partition, right-click the target partition and choose "Shrink volume" from the extended menu and follow the prompts.
For extending a partition, right-click the target partition and choose "Extend volume" from the drop-down menu and follow the prompts.
Sadly, according to the user's feedback, it's common to meet some issues when using Windows 11 Disk Management resize partition size.
Sometimes, when you use Windows 11 Disk Management to reduce the size of the target partition, "Shrink Volume" button appears grey so you can't click on it. People usually encounter such problem in the following situations:
Another case is when you want to enlarge your partition in Disk Management Windows 11, you may find the "Extend Volume" is greyed out in the right-click menu, which restricts the user to extend the drive with low space. The "Extend Volume" will be disabled if:
As we can see, no matter whether you tend to use Disk Management or DiskPart on Windows 11 computer, the limitations are always around you and can't be completely avoided. Therefore, I will recommend you a free disk manager named AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard to replace Windows 11 Disk Management resize partition without losing data. AOMEI software is a professional partition manager designed for Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, XP and Vista users. In resizing partitions, it can do better and more than Disk Management:
No matter how your partition is, AOMEI Partition Assistant always has the relevant functions to ease it. Now, download the freeware and follow the detailed tutorial below to resize partition Windows 11 easily and safely.
Shrinking a partition is quite easy, but AOMEI software can help you get it done easier. Follow the steps to have a look.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. The home interface will display info of all hard disks and partitions. Right-click on the partition you want to shrink, and select "Resize/Move Partition".
Step 2. In the new window, drag the rings to adjust the length of the green bar to determine the size to shrink. Then hit "OK".
Step 3. Then, click "Apply > Proceed" to start shrinking.
The same as Disk Management in Windows 11, if there are adjacent unallocated space right behind the target partition, you can use "Resize Partition" to enlarge the drive by dragging the green bar to the right. If not, you can use "Move Partition" to make the unallocated space and to-be-extended partition adjacent.
But in this page I'll recommend a more convenient way to you, which won't be affected by the position of the unallocated space. Here are the steps.
Step 1. Open AOMEI software, right-click the partition you want to extend, choose "Advanced" and "Merge Partitions".
Step 2. Tick the unallocated space and click on "OK".
Step 3. Click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit the operation.
Now, from this passage, you have known that not every time when using Windows 11 Disk Management resize partition will work. The problems brought by it are always annoying, thus, it's wise and advisable to download an alternative Windows 11 partition manager like AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard mentioned above on your computer. It's featured with many useful and practical functions to help you manage your partitions better, such as migrating OS to SSD , testing the speed of your hard drive, moving folders from C drive to D drive, and so on.