How to Move Partition in Windows 10, 8, 7?  

How to Move Partition in Windows 10, 8, 7?

Updated on Jun 24, 2024 | by Nick Jones

Overview of Move Partition

Windows Disk Management's "Extend Volume" feature is often greyed out when trying to extend a partition after shrinking another one, because shrinking creates unallocated space on the right side and extending requires unallocated space on the left side.

To extend the target partition, you need to move the partition that's currently in the way to the left side, making room for the unallocated space to be moved to the right side of the target partition.

How to move a partition in Windows 11/10/8/7?

To move a partition on a Windows computer, use third-party software like Qiling Disk Master Professional, which offers a "Move Partition" feature that can reset the location of a given partition, even on drives with itlocker encryption, on Windows 11/10/8/7 and XP/Vista (32-bit and 64-bit).Bitlocker encryption, on Windows 11/10/8/7 and XP/Vista (32-bit and 64-bit).

To enlarge partition C by adding the unallocated space, first move partition D to the end of the disk, making the unallocated space directly after C partition. Then, smoothly extend C partition by adding the unallocated space. This will give you more space for partition C.

Before you do

  • Download and install Qiling Disk Master on a Windows computer.
  • To move a partition on a disk, there must be an unallocated space adjacent to the target partition, otherwise it cannot be moved. This is because the partition cannot be resized to fit in the target location without overlapping with an existing partition or being placed in an unallocated space.
  • To avoid data loss, it's recommended to create a backup before making any changes to the partition. Qiling Disk Master is a free and suitable option for this purpose.

How to move partition with Partition Assistant

1. Install and run Qiling Disk Master Professional. To move a partition, choose the partition you want to move, such as the F partition, and right-click it. Then, select the option to "Resize/Move Partition".

Move Partition

2. To resize the partition, move the mouse over the selected partition, and when it turns into a cross crux, drag it to the right to extend it to the very end. For example, to resize partition F:, move the mouse over it and drag it to the right until it reaches the end.

Move To New Location

3. As shown in the screenshot, the partition D has been relocated to the right side of the unallocated space, and the unallocated space is now situated directly after the C partition. To finalize this operation, click the "Proceed" button.

Apply

4. Once the operation is finished successfully, the D: drive will be moved to the end of the drive.

Move Partition Result

After successfully moving the partition, you can expand the partition you want using the "Resize/Move Partition" feature. For example, to expand the C partition, right-click on it, select "Resize/Move Partition", and drag the bar to the right to extend it with the unallocated space.

Conclusion

With the help of Qiling Disk Master Professional, you can move a partition forward or backward to resize/expand partitions with available free space, doing so safely and easily.

Partition Assistant offers additional features beyond disk management, including merging adjacent and non-adjacent unallocated space into another partition via the "Merge Partition" feature, and assigning free space from one partition to another using the "Allocate Free Space" function. It also provides advanced functions not available in Disk Management, such as loning partition, transferring OS to SSD, converting MBR and GPT without deleting partitions, cloning hard disk, and more.cloning partition, transferring OS to SSD, converting MBR and GPT without deleting partitions, cloning hard disk, and more.

Notes:

  • If you're moving applications to another partition, the software will notify you to close them or to execute this operation in PreOS Mode.
  • Moving system partition will require you to reboot computer.

FAQs:

Q: Is it possible to move exFAT partition?

A: exFAT partitions can be moved, but they cannot be expanded or shrunk.

Q: How long will it take to move a partition?

A: The program will provide an estimated time to complete the task, which will depend on the amount of data being processed, after the user clicks the "Apply" button.

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