# How do I increase the size of Windows 7 partition without screwing it up?



## CannonFodder (Jun 22, 2012)

Short version is I never thought I needed that much computer space and then-





Basically I still have a ton of money on my account and I have enough space on my hard drive.   I just didn't make the windows 7 partition large enough to fit every game I want to get.  So basically how do I go about increasing my windows 7 partition WITHOUT screwing it up this time?


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## Elim Garak (Jun 22, 2012)

Use the windows disk manager or partion magic, I moved my steam myself due to having an ssd


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## AshleyAshes (Jun 22, 2012)

Elim Garak said:


> Use the windows disk manager or partion magic, I moved my steam myself due to having an ssd



Partition Magic was discontinued long ago and doesn't work under Vista or Windows 7.  However I've found Acronis Disk Director to be a fairly worthy successor.

I'm not sure if the Windows 7 tool can do the job when there are other partitions on the drive that it doesn't support, like Ext4 formatted partitions.


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## Elim Garak (Jun 22, 2012)

It can't shrink ext4 partitions. Also I mixed them up, I meant gparted live cd,  works wonders even with ntfs.


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## CannonFodder (Jun 22, 2012)

Elim Garak said:


> It can't shrink ext4 partitions. Also I mixed them up, I meant gparted live cd,  works wonders even with ntfs.


Last time I used gparted live cd on a windows 7 partition it butchered my computer.


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## Elim Garak (Jun 22, 2012)

CannonFodder said:


> Last time I used gparted live cd on a windows 7 partition it butchered my computer.


That usually means you did it wrong.
Usually only thing that gets butchered is the MBR/Bootloader, but that takes 30 seconds to fix.


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## CannonFodder (Jun 22, 2012)

Elim Garak said:


> That usually means you did it wrong.
> Usually only thing that gets butchered is the MBR/Bootloader, but that takes 30 seconds to fix.


I'm just trying to make absolutely sure I'm doing it right this time less I break something again.


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## Elim Garak (Jun 22, 2012)

You should be able to resize the OS partition in Windows by using Disk Management, just shrink one partition on the drive, and extend the OS drive.
If it doesn't allow you http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...get-more/6acd8697-4292-4280-8270-049691d14598 tl;dr use gparted, be sure to have a win 7 install disk or repair disk with you(Not for a reinstall but just to fix any booting issues) also NEVER cancel a partition change in progress.


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## AshleyAshes (Jun 22, 2012)

CannonFodder said:


> Last time I used gparted live cd on a windows 7 partition it butchered my computer.



That's because you use GParted to move the Windows 7 partition to a different physical drive, in a different location on the drive, didn't copy boot info to the new drive and operating systems don't like that.

Simply resizing existing partitions with Gparted will have no effect on the boot sectors of the drive or the operating system's operation.


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## CannonFodder (Jun 22, 2012)

AshleyAshes said:


> That's because you use GParted to move the Windows 7 partition to a different physical drive, in a different location on the drive, didn't copy boot info to the new drive and operating systems don't like that.
> 
> Simply resizing existing partitions with Gparted will have no effect on the boot sectors of the drive or the operating system's operation.


There was a time after that I tried to use Gparted on Windows 7 and it failed to boot windows 7 like I am saying.  I'm trying to figure out why it failed to boot last time I resized a windows 7 partition so that this time it doesn't do the same thing this time.


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## TreacleFox (Jun 22, 2012)

Well, you can install some steam games on a different drive, so you have some on one drive and some on the other, if that helps.
This shows how: http://forums.steamgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1138731


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## shteev (Jun 22, 2012)

I'm pretty sure the built in Windows drive manager should do the trick.

Go to the Start menu, right-click and select "manage", and then select "storage manager" (or something like that, it's pretty close), and then, when you can see all your available drives and partitions, right click on your Windows partition and see if the "extend" option is available. If it isn't, try the other software mentioned in the thread. It is possible that Windows doesn't recognize the file systems of the available space on your drive.

If all goes well, then mmmm gigabytes.

EDIT this was already mentioned ffffff


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## CannonFodder (Jun 22, 2012)

shteev said:


> I'm pretty sure the built in Windows drive manager should do the trick.
> 
> Go to the Start menu, right-click and select "manage", and then select "storage manager" (or something like that, it's pretty close), and then, when you can see all your available drives and partitions, right click on your Windows partition and see if the "extend" option is available. If it isn't, try the other software mentioned in the thread. It is possible that Windows doesn't recognize the file systems of the available space on your drive.
> 
> ...


Here's hoping it goes well.
I haven't done it yet cause I've been increasing my ubuntu partition also.


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## Runefox (Jun 22, 2012)

Yeah, Disk Management should be fine. The new "extend volume" and "shrink volume" options are really great, and work online (as in, no reboot required). ... That said, it can't shrink / extend non-NTFS partitions, so shrink your Linux partition(s) via gparted first.

Really, the best option is to get a hard drive and dedicate it for Steam games and other storage. I run a RAID 0 of 2 1TB drives for my games (being things that I rarely care enough about to worry about losing since I have a 70mbps connection and redownloading from Steam is a minor inconvenience at worst.


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## CannonFodder (Jun 23, 2012)

I worked.  I made the windows 7 partition too large though, cause I was wanting to save some of the empty space.  However it's nothing I can't live with and it's not important.


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## shteev (Jun 23, 2012)

Nice. Enjoy the space.


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