"Unallocated" space is blank disk space that does not belong to any partition; it can be used to create a new volume or extend another partition. When the C drive is getting full on a Windows 10 computer, many people shrink the D drive and get unallocated space, but they cannot extend the C drive because the "Extend Volume" function is grayed out. To solve this problem, you must move the unallocated space to the left with third-party software. This article introduces how to move unallocated space on a Windows 10/8/7 laptop/desktop/tablet. Move unallocated space to the C drive, or to the left/right, without losing data in the partitions.
Disk Management Cannot Move Unallocated Space to the Left
Windows 10/8/7 Disk Management has "Shrink Volume" and "Extend Volume" functions to help you resize partitions without losing data, but it cannot extend a volume by shrinking another one, because to extend a partition with Disk Management, there must be contiguous unallocated space on the right. You cannot get such required unallocated space with Disk Management.
For example, after shrinking the D drive via Disk Management, unallocated space is created on the right of D. It is non-adjacent to the C drive and is on the left of another E drive. Therefore, "Extend Volume" is grayed out for both partitions.
If you want to merge unallocated space into the C drive, you must move the unallocated space next to the C drive in advance. Because Disk Management cannot move unallocated space or create unallocated space on the left when shrinking a partition, you must run third-party software. Compared with other tools, NIUBI Partition Editor features unique 1-Second Rollback, Virtual Mode, and Cancel-at-will technologies to protect your system and data.
Whether you want to move unallocated space next to the C drive in Windows 10/8/7, or move unallocated space to the left, right, or the end of the disk, it is very easy with NIUBI Partition Editor. It offers a free edition for Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP home computer users.
1. How to Move Unallocated Space Next to C Drive
Download NIUBI Partition Editor, and you will see all storage devices with their partition structure and other information on the right. Available operations for the selected disk or partition are listed on the left and upon right-clicking. In the example below, there is 20GB of unallocated space on Disk 0 which is shrunk from the D: drive.
To move unallocated space next to the C drive in Windows 10/8/7: Right-click the D: drive and select "Resize/Move Volume", then drag the middle of the D drive to the right in the pop-up window.
Then the unallocated space is moved to the left of the D drive.
2. How to Merge Unallocated Space into the C Drive
After moving the unallocated space to the left, the "Extend Volume" function is enabled for the NTFS partition in Disk Management. You may either use this Windows native tool or NIUBI Partition Editor to extend the C drive. To merge the unallocated space into the C drive in Windows 10/8/7 with NIUBI: right-click the C: drive and select "Resize/Move Volume" again, then drag the right border to the right in the pop-up window.
Then this adjacent unallocated space is merged into the C drive.
NIUBI works in virtual mode to avoid mistakes; real disk partitions will not be modified until you click Apply to confirm.
How to move Unallocated space to C drive in Windows 10/8/7:
3. How to Move Unallocated Space to the Left/Right
Windows 10/8/7 Disk Management can only merge unallocated space into the left adjacent partition. Therefore, if you want to shrink D to expand the right partition E, it is impossible with Disk Management. But with NIUBI Partition Editor, you can easily extend the E: drive without moving the unallocated space to the right. To do this, right-click E: and select "Resize/Move Volume", then drag the left border to the left in the pop-up window:
If you want to merge this unallocated space into another partition F, you need to move the unallocated space to the right of the E drive in advance. Similarly, right-click E: and select "Resize/Move Volume", then drag the middle of the partition to the left in the pop-up window.
To move unallocated space to the left/right in Windows 10/8/7, you just need to drag the middle of the adjacent partition to exchange its position with the unallocated space.
4. How to Move Unallocated Space to the End of the Disk
If there are many partitions and you want to move the unallocated space to the end of the disk, you can move the contiguous partitions one by one. Watch the video on how to merge and move unallocated space in Windows 10/8/7 computers:
5. How to Move Unallocated Space to Another Disk
In some computers, the C drive is full, but there is no other data volume or not enough free space on the same disk. Some people want to move unallocated space from another disk. This is impossible with any disk partition software, because the size of a physical disk is fixed. Although a virtual disk can be expanded or shrunk, you still cannot move unallocated space from one disk to another.
To extend the C drive in Windows 10/8/7 in this situation, you have 2 options:
- Move a data partition to another disk, delete it to get unallocated space, and then merge it into the C drive.
- Copy the entire disk to a larger one and extend the C drive with the extra disk space.
Besides merging and moving unallocated space in Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you perform many other disk partition management operations such as shrinking, extending, converting, copying, hiding, defragging, wiping, scanning bad sectors, and much more.
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