Efficiently handling your hard drive partitions is a crucial element of owning a computer, enabling individuals to organize data according to different classifications. For instance, you can group your media files like movies and music in one partition, reserve a separate partition for work-related folders, and designate your system drive for program installations.
Moreover, if you’re an advanced user who employs multiple operating systems through dual or triple boot setups, you’re well aware that this necessitates dividing your SSD or HDD into smaller partitions.
Does Windows have a partition manager?
Disk Management is a well-known and commonly used function in Windows. It can assist you in managing hard drive partitions without resetting the system or causing any interruptions. It is a useful application for Windows users.
However, this tool has many limitations when you wish to make some modifications. For instance, when your disk doesn’t have unallocated space or adjacent space on hard drive, you’re not allowed to extend any partition that runs out of space. And if you want to convert mbr to gpt windows 10, this tool will ask you to clean all data on the target disk because it can’t perform such task on a used disk.
Best partition manager software to replace Disk Management
Windows Disk Management serves as a useful tool for Windows users, yet it does possess several limitations. Consequently, we are in search of an enhanced disk management solution, and in this regard, we recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. This robust and free disk management software effectively addresses the shortcomings of the default disk partition manager in Windows. It is compatible with a wide range of Windows operating systems, including XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, and the latest Windows 11.
To illustrate, AOMEI Partition Assistant offers the ability to expand partitions, regardless of the presence of unallocated space immediately adjacent to the target partition in Windows. As long as there is unallocated space neighboring the partition, regardless of its position on either the left or right side, the Resize/Move Partition feature of AOMEI Partition Assistant enables you to enlarge the partition. Furthermore, AOMEI Partition Assistant even empowers you to increase the size of a partition in the absence of unallocated space on the hard drive.
Case 1. Extend partition with non-contiguous unallocated space
In this case, we propose using AOMEI Partition Assistant’s “Merge Partitions” feature, which can join two neighboring partitions or non-contiguous unallocated space into another existing partition.
Step 1. Download AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.
Step 2. Install and launch it. Right-click on the partition you need to extend (e.g. D Drive) and choose Advanced > Merge Partitions.
Step 3. Tick the checkbox before the unallocated space and then click OK.
Step 4. Now you can preview the unallocated space that has been added to C drive. To save the change, please click Apply button in the top left corner.
Case 2. Extend partition with no unallocated space
When there is not any unallocated space on the disk, you can upgrade to the Professional Edition to try the “Allocate Free Space” instead to directly move some free space from one partition to another.
Step 1. Open this software, right-click a partition that has enough space (here is D partition), and then choose Allocate Free Space.
Step 2. Enter the size of free space you would like to add into another partition (here is C drive), and then click OK.
Step 3. Now you can preview that some free space has been allocated to C drive from D partition. Click Apply to save the changes. Then you will extend partition C.
Ending
This is the best windows partition manager software for PC users. AOMEI Partition Assistant offers you various solutions to manage Windows devices. You can employ groups of functions to maximize your PC performance with simple operations.
