How to extend primary partition on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Windows 7/8?

About primary partition

A primary partition contains one file system. In MS-DOS and earlier versions of Microsoft Windows systems, the first partition (C :) must be a primary partition. Some operating systems are not limited in this way; however, this also depends on other factors, such as a PC's BIOS (see Boot sequence on standard PC for more information).

The partition type code for a primary partition can either correspond to a file system contained within (e.g. 0x07 means either an NTFS or an OS/2 HPFS file system) or indicate the partition has a special use (e.g. code 0x82 usually indicates a Linux swap partition). The FAT16 and FAT32 file systems have made use of quite a number of partition type codes over time due to the limits of various DOS and Windows OS versions. Though a Linux operating system may recognize a number of different file systems (ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, etc.), they have all consistently used the same partition type code: 0x83 (Linux native file system).

Some cases to extend primary partition

"I am using Windows Vista Home Professional. I want to extend my existing C Drive (primary partition). I have tried some tools like Partition Magic and others which give me that they are not compatible with Vista. Can anyone suggest me any better option to extend my primary partition?"

"I have 19.1 GB of unallocated space that I want to extend my C: Drive (primary partition) containing Vista. The inbuilt Disk management tool can't do this. Any other software?"

"I have a laptop running XP Pro SP2 which were provided pre-partitioned with the primary partition in NTFS and the second partition as FAT32, C: and D: respectively. The C drive is out of space, how to extend primary partition?"

There have been a number of questions about how to extend primary partition. Windows Vista, Windows 2008 or Windows 7 Disk Management can extend primary partition under the condition that there are continuous space behind primary partition. Otherwise, you cannot extend primary partition with it, as Windows Vista, Windows 2008 or Windows 7 Disk Management cannot move partition to let continuous space behind the primary partition which you want to extend. However, a magic partition manager, EaseUS Partition Master is recommended to easily extend primary partition without data loss under Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Windows 7/8 32 bit and 64 bit.

How to extend primary partition with magic partition manager - EaseUS Partition Master?

EaseUS Partition Master can extend primary partition with simple operations by its "Resize/Move partition" feature. Here is the steps to extend primary partition:

Download and launch EaseUS Partition Master first, and then backup system and data with backup software to ensure 100% security.

When there is unallocated space next to the primary partition, only two steps can finish extending primary partition:

• Select primary partition and use "Resize/Move partition" to increase its space.
• Click Apply.

* If there is no unallocated space, you should use "Resize/Move partition" to shrink the partition next to the primary partition first, then extend primary partition directly.

Besides Partition Manager, EaseUS Partition Master provides Partition Recovery and Disk and Partition Copy features. It is a complete solution to solve your MBR and GPT disk and partition problems. If you are Windows Server users, EaseUS Partition Master Server Edition will be your best choice.

 

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