Question Can you increase the size of an existing partition in Windows without losing data?

[Balic Blackthorn]

So, I've made what I'm sure is a rookie mistake. I bought a 4tb SSD drive to replace my 2TB one. Rather than reinstalling everything, I just cloned the old drive to the new one. When I look at the new one (and I'm sure this is where some of you will chuckle), I see that the main partition is...exactly the same size as my old HD. So close to 2TB is sitting there unallocated.

I'm wondering if it's possible to expand the size of the main partition while keeping the data and windows installation on it. (If not, I guess I can just format the partition and assign a drive letter to it, but I'd prefer it all be one if possible).

 

[Lutfij]

I use EaseUS Partition Manager to resize any drive that I needs it. I would hover start from scratch in case there are any hiccups. This is also a good time to backup any and/or all mission critical data that might be on the drive.

 

[faalin]

Do you know if that drive was MBR or GPT when windows was installed. If its MBR you will not be able to extend the drive over 2TB. You could take the extra 2TB that is unallocated and make a new partition out of it giving yourself a D drive then.

If it GPT you will have to use a 3rd party application like EaseUS to move the unallocated partition next to the C drive so the C drive can be expanded into the unallocated space.

 

[USAFRet]

Any time you mess with partition resizing, you NEED a known good copy of all the data involved. Mistakes happen.

If the original drive is still viable, you can redo the clone, and prevent this issue in the process.

 

[SkyNetRising]

If its MBR you will not be able to extend the drive over 2TB. You could take the extra 2TB that is unallocated and make a new partition out of it giving yourself a D drive then.

On MBR drive - capacity past 2TB is not available. You can not make a partition in unallocated space past 2TB boundary.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I'm wondering if it's possible to expand the size of the main partition while keeping the data and windows installation on it.

Please show screenshot from Disk Management.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

Generally - to be able to extend a partition, unallocated space has to be exactly next to the partition (right side).
If there is another partition between one you're extending and free space, then this extra partition will interfere with ability to extend.

 

[Balic Blackthorn]

Please show screenshot from Disk Management.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

Generally - to be able to extend a partition, unallocated space has to be exactly next to the partition (right side).
If there is another partition between one you're extending and free space, then this extra partition will interfere with ability to extend.

https://imgur.com/a/X8N3AVl

View: https://imgur.com/a/X8N3AVl


Disk 1 is the disk in question. (0 is the one it was cloned from).

 

[SkyNetRising]

Well .. your drive is partitioned in MBR mode.
You can not use capacity of your entire 4TB drive in MBR mode. Only 2TB is available.
You could delete 569MB recovery partition and extend F: by 185GB.
Remaining 1678GB are unavailable.

Most sensible (and simplest) course of action would be
removing all partitions from 4TB drive,
converting it to GPT,
creating a single large partition and
using it as secondary (not OS) drive - for games, user files etc.

Or you can go a bit more advanced way about it.
This requires UEFI support. If your motherboard doesn't support UEFI, then this option is not available. (BTW - What is model name of your motherboard?)
1. Shutdown your system
2. Physically remove Old 2TB drive
3. Boot from new 4TB drive
4. Use MBR2gpt utility to convert 4TB drive to GPT
5. It will probably be necessary to rearrange bootloader partition. Some manual steps will be required.
6. After that it would be possible to use entire 4TB drive.

 

[Balic Blackthorn]

Well .. your drive is partitioned in MBR mode.
You can not use capacity of your entire 4TB drive in MBR mode. Only 2TB is available.
You could delete 569MB recovery partition and extend F: by 185GB.
Remaining 1678GB are unavailable.

Most sensible (and simplest) course of action would be
removing all partitions from 4TB drive,
converting it to GPT,
creating a single large partition and
using it as secondary (not OS) drive - for games, user files etc.

Or you can go a bit more advanced way about it.
This requires UEFI support. If your motherboard doesn't support UEFI, then this option is not available. (BTW - What is model name of your motherboard?)
1. Shutdown your system
2. Physically remove Old 2TB drive
3. Boot from new 4TB drive
4. Use MBR2gpt utility to convert 4TB drive to GPT
5. It will probably be necessary to rearrange bootloader partition. Some manual steps will be required.
6. After that it would be possible to use entire 4TB drive.

My board is UEFI. AsRock X399 Tachi.

My theoretical plan was as follows.

-Clone 2tb to 4tb drive. Make sure it boots (it does).
-Convert 4TB drive to GPT. Make sure it boots.
-Switch on the crap Windows 11 requires (Secure Boot and TPM). Make sure drive boots up.
-Upgrade new 4tb drive to windows 11.

Basically, if anything goes wrong in this process, I still have my install on my original 2tb drive with all my data, and can try again, and haven't lost anything.

 

[geofelt]

Is the new drive samsung?
If so, you can use their ssd migration aid to move your C drive to the new drive and all the new space will be there. Link to the app and manual:

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

semiconductor.samsung.com

A clone is a bit for bit copy.
Some clone utilities will allow you to resize partitions as part of the process.

 

[USAFRet]

-Clone 2tb to 4tb drive. Make sure it boots (it does).
-Convert 4TB drive to GPT. Make sure it boots.

This is backwards.

Covert the 4TB.
Clone, adjusting partition sizes in the process.

Thusly:

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Magician (which includes Data Migration), if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[BFG-9000]

This clone would be more complicated than it appears, and it may be easier to convert your present, working clone to GPT first and expand it later. It is also already a working, bootable clone so you don't risk ruining your only copy.

For the disk to be MBR means Windows was installed in Legacy BIOS mode (and in this mode now!)--as there is no EFI system partition. If Windows had been installed on GPT and then cloned to MBR this partition would be there and UEFI mode would work fine, happily ignoring the bootstrap code in the MBR in favor of booting from the EFI system partition on an MBR disk, and you could clone this arrangement back to GPT (and switch to UEFI mode) no problem.

This means if you cloned and converted to GPT at the same time with some 3rd party utility, it would have to either be specifically aware it would have to create an EFI partition complete with bootmgfw.efi + bootmgr and update the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store + volume boot record (VBR), or you'd need another 3rd party utility later to repair things. This is a similar situation like when someone installs Windows with multiple drives installed, then removes the drive with the boot partition later. It's fixable but a lot of trouble, when the mbr2gpt.exe in Windows would do this for you automatically. Just follow one of the many online guides to switch from Legacy BIOS to UEFI.

Once that is working, you can either use Windows' built-in tools to expand the partition if you are willing to lose the recovery partition (which is superfluous if you have install media on USB), or else use a 3rd-party utility if you'd like to keep it.

 

[Balic Blackthorn]

This clone would be more complicated than it appears, and it may be easier to convert your present, working clone to GPT first and expand it later. It is also already a working, bootable clone so you don't risk ruining your only copy.

For the disk to be MBR means Windows was installed in Legacy BIOS mode (and in this mode now!)--as there is no EFI system partition. If Windows had been installed on GPT and then cloned to MBR this partition would be there and UEFI mode would work fine, happily ignoring the bootstrap code in the MBR in favor of booting from the EFI system partition on an MBR disk, and you could clone this arrangement back to GPT (and switch to UEFI mode) no problem.

This means if you cloned and converted to GPT at the same time with some 3rd party utility, it would have to either be specifically aware it would have to create an EFI partition complete with bootmgfw.efi + bootmgr and update the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store + volume boot record (VBR), or you'd need another 3rd party utility later to repair things. This is a similar situation like when someone installs Windows with multiple drives installed, then removes the drive with the boot partition later. It's fixable but a lot of trouble, when the mbr2gpt.exe in Windows would do this for you automatically. Just follow one of the many online guides to switch from Legacy BIOS to UEFI.

Once that is working, you can either use Windows' built-in tools to expand the partition if you are willing to lose the recovery partition (which is superfluous if you have install media on USB), or else use a 3rd-party utility if you'd like to keep it.

This topic kind of diverged from my original question, but the answer to that seems to be "once I have the drive in GPT "mode", I can then expand the partition whenever."

The drive I am using now originally came from my old computer. We just pulled the drive, plopped it in the new machine I built a couple years ago, and it settled into it's new home just fine. Didn't need to reinstall anything.

That's why I have a MBR drive in a computer that has a UEFI interface.

So it sounds like you're saying I should follow my original plan, and convert the cloned drive to GPT. At that point I'll flip on the stuff Win 11 demands you have enabled (secure boot and TP..something), and then I can upgrade to win 11.

 

[USAFRet]

The drive I am using now originally came from my old computer. We just pulled the drive, plopped it in the new machine I built a couple years ago, and it settled into it's new home just fine. Didn't need to reinstall anything.

And that was a very lucky outcome.
It is not always thus.

But, now, moving to a 4TB, you NEED to convert it to GPT.
There is no option.

And it is much easier to do it before the clone.

 

[SkyNetRising]

And it is much easier to do it before the clone.

I don't see, how it is easier before clone. Same procedure, no difference.
It's safer to do after clone. Original drive remains unchanged as safe backup, if something goes wrong.

This topic kind of diverged from my original question, but the answer to that seems to be "once I have the drive in GPT "mode", I can then expand the partition whenever."

You'll have to delete recovery partition and move bootloader partition.
Only then you'll be able to expand.

 

[USAFRet]

I don't see, how it is easier before clone. Same procedure, no difference.
It's safer to do after clone. Original drive remains unchanged as safe backup, if something goes wrong.


You'll have to delete recovery partition and move bootloader partition.
Only then you'll be able to expand.

You can resize the target partitions directly in the clone software, before you hit the Go button.
No deleting or moving partitions around.