How to Fix Disk Management All Options Greyed Out on Windows
About Disk Management
Disk Management is a system program on Windows developed by Microsoft, which allows you to perform advanced storage tasks, like create new partition, extend a volume, shrink a partition, change drive letter or assign a new drive letter, etc. How to get into Disk Management to resize, create, format partitions on Windows 7/8/10/11? There are three ways to run Disk Management:
Way 1: Right-click on the Start at the bottom left of desk; choose Disk Management.
Way 2: Right-click on the Computer icon; choose Manage to open Computer Management; select Disk Management.
Way 3: Use CMD tool. Execute diskmgmt.msc.
As far as I know, Disk Management has some limitations to manage your hard drive:
✎ Disk Management can only extend the volume with the adjacent unallocated space to the right, if the unallocated space is not behind the target volume, the extend volume is greyed out in Disk Management.
✎ Disk Management could not allow you to move partitions.
Thus, you may meet the disk management all options greyed out problems.
Disk Management options greyed out issues and solutions
There are some error messages you might encounter in Disk Management on Windows 7, 8, 10, 11 PC:
| 🥇"Extend Volume" greyed out | No contiguous unallocated space behind the target partition. |
| 🥈"Shrink Volume" greyed out | The target partition has no shrinkable space; the target partition is not an NTFS file system. |
| 🥉"Format Volume" greyed out | The target partition is the system partition; the target partition is corrupted or has bad sectors |
| 🏅"Delete Volume" greyed out | The target partition which has logical on it; the target partition is system partition |
Next, I will describe the detail reason why "Windows Disk Management greyed out" error happens and show you how to fix it easily and securely step by step.
▶ Error 1. Extend/Shrink volume is greyed out in Disk Management
Why extend volume option is greyed out? Sometimes, you need to extend a partition with an unallocated space/free space to fix low disk space problem on Windows 7/8/10/11. If the continuous unallocated space/free space is not behind the volume you want to operate, and you will be prompted by the Disk Management extend volume greyed out error on Windows 11/10/8/7; that is to say, you can only extend volume to the adjacent space in Disk Management ; or the partition you are going to operate is not NTFS partition when you find out the extend option greyed out in Disk Management. Because the Extend volume feature only works for a RAW or NTFS partition in Disk Management.
Why shrink volume option is greyed out? The shrink option will be greyed out if the selected partition does not have enough free space. Or the partition you operated is not NTFS file system. Because shrink volume is allowed to an NTFS partition in Disk Management. Thus, you could make sure you have enough contiguous free space to operate, or convert the partition to NTFS file system. You could delete some useless files or uninstall the unnecessary program to free up space, or shrink other partitions to get a free space.
Solution 1. Extend/Shrink volume with DiskPart
1. Type diskpart to open the diskpart command prompt at the search box which next to the start button.
2. Then type the commands to extend/shrink volume on Windows 7/8/10/11.
● list disk
● select disk 0 (the "0" is the disk where the partition allocated)
● list partition
● select partition 3 (the "3" is the drive letter you want to extend/shrink)
● extend/shrink
And you will extend/shrink volume successfully with Diskpart.
Solution 2. Extend/Shrink volume with Qiling Disk Master
This extend/shrink option greyed out issue in Disk Management will be fixed by the powerful third-party disk partitioning software, like Qiling Disk Master Standard. It will overcome the limitations of Disk Management.
This freeware is a comprehensive tool for managing disk partitions. You could download the free disk partitioning software. Qiling Disk Master Standard combines the Extend and shrink volume functions into the Resize Partition. You could enjoy it now to fix "Disk Management all options greyed out" problem.
The steps of extend/shrink volume are listed as follows:
1. Execute the program, choose the partition you want to spare free space from, choose Resize/Move Partition.
2. Move the double-sided arrow to the left to locate the proper location.
3. Click Proceed to repair Disk Management shrink option greyed out issue. Then you will get an unallocated space.
4. Now you could use Merge Partitions/Resize Partition (here is Merge Partitions) to extend the partition you wanted with the unallocated space:
5. Choose the partition you want to extend and the unallocated space to merge.
6. Press Proceed to fix Disk Management extend option greyed out problem.
- ★Tip:
-
Qiling Disk Master Professional provides many amazing features like allocate free space, migrate OS to SSD, move installed apps or folders to another drive, convert MBR to GPT without losing data, etc. For Windows Server users, you could enjoy all the features with Qiling Disk Master Server on Windows server computers.
▶ Error 2. Format volume is greyed out
The reasons: The partition you format is system partition; or the selected partition corrupted or there are bad sectors. If you format the system partition (typically the C drive) would not be successful due to the system files, pagefiles, etc. which is not allowed to delete on Windows 7/8/10/11. However, you could fix Windows cannot format the system partition on this disk error.
Solution: Format hard drive partition by CMD
Click Start and type cmd > Right-click on cmd.exe and select Run as Administrator; then type the following commands and execute one by one:
● diskpart
● list disk
● select disk 1
● list partition
● select partition 1
● format fs=ntfs quick
▶ Error 3. Disk Management Delete volume greyed out
The reasons: Delete an extended partition which has logical on it, you may get the delete volume greyed out error message; Delete a system/boot partition will cause the delete volume greyed out error.
Solution: You could delete the extended partition after removing the logical partition on it in Disk Management. For deleting system/boot partition, you could try to make bootable media and boot from it, then delete system/boot volume under Windows PE with Qiling Disk Master Standard. Remember that backup your hard drive before deleting system/boot partition to fix the Disk management delete option greyed out issue.
Boot your computer from the bootable media, then Qiling Disk Master will automatically run on your Windows 7/8/10/11 PC, then Delete system/boot volume on your HDD.
Furthermore, the bad sector on your hard drive will deny you to extend/shrink/format/delete volume in Disk Management. Therefore, you should check the partition errors to make sure whether there is bad sector or not. Now, you can refer to below words to fix all options greyed out in Disk Management problem.
1. Open Qiling Disk Master Standard, choose the hard disk you want to operate.
2. Click Tools and utilities tab page and choose Surface Test.
3. Choose disk and click Proceed to check errors.
Verdict
After all of these solutions, you could have fixed Disk Management all options greyed out problem. As you can see, this is a powerful and market-leading disk partition manager. It has more highlights waiting to be unlocked by you than what is presented in this article.
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