How to Extend & Shrink System Partition Beyond Limits on Windows 10

Do you want to extend your system partition?

Have you tried to shrink the system partition but it’s limited even though you have free space?

As you know a fresh Windows 10 installation takes around 15GB of storage space.

And many PC users allocate a small storage space for their system partition when installing Windows. Sure you may not need lot of space in the early days… But after you install apps you start running out of space unless you change the installation directory to another drive.

In this guide you will learn how to extend your existing partition without having to reinstall Windows.

You will learn to extend and shrink the partition, using the built-in Disk Management Tool.

Extend System Partition Using Disk Management 

If you want to extend the system partition using the Disk Management tool you must see some unallocated space next to the system partition. If there is no unallocated space next to the system partition then you can’t extend the system partition and you won’t see “Extend volume” option.

However, in the next method you can successfully extend your system drive no matter what. But please backup your data first, you are responsible if any thing goes wrong.

Open Run using Windows+R key shortcut and type in diskmgmt.msc.

You can also search for Disk Management in Start.

Once Disk Management is open, check if you have any Unallocated space next to your system partition or any secondary partition.

If there is any, right-click on your system partition and choose “Extend Volume“. In my case I already have a Extended partition, if you are in the same situation prepare an external hard drive and move all the data in that partition to the external drive, because we need to delete that partition in order to free up space. Because we can’t extend the system partition unless there is Unallocated space next to it.

Right-click on the “Extended partition” and choose “Delete Volume…”

Then right-click on the Free space and choose “Delete Partition…”

Now right-click on your system partition and choose “Extend Volume…”

Click on the “Next >” button.

Put the amount you want to extend your system partition with, in this example I want to add an additional 20GB so I put 20000 which is in MB.

Click on the “Next >” button.

Click “Finish”.

Now re-create your Extended partition by right-clicking on the Unallocated space and choose “New Simple Volume…“.

Click on “Next >“.

Leave the volume size maxed out, click “Next >” button.

Choose a letter to assign to the new drive. Click “Next >” button.

Click “Finish“.

This is the final result!

From 198.45GB in the system partition to 217.98GB.

Now let’s see how to shrink it beyond limits due to unmovable files.

Shrink System Partition Beyond Limits Using Disk Management

Sometimes when we try to shrink the system partition, even if we have enough free space in the drive/partition it gives us only ~10% of that free space to shrink. Just follow these steps and you will be able to shrink 100% of your free space in the system partition.

1. Disable Hibernation

First we need to disable hibernation, for this you need to open the Command Prompt as administrator.

Just open Start and type in cmd, right-click on the App Command Prompt and choose “Run as administrator“”.

Run this command:

powercfg /hibernate off

2. Disable Virtual Memory

Open the Explorer window (Windows+E) and right-click on “This PC” and choose “Properties“. This will open the good ol’ System window.

Click on “Advanced system settings“.

On the tab “Advanced” click on Settings under “Performance“.

Click on “Change” button under the Advanced tab.

Uncheck “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives“.

Select your system Drive and choose “No paging file” and click “Set“.

Confirm by clicking “Yes“.

You will need a restart after this, but don’t restart yet until you finish the third step.

3. Disable Windows Restore

Open Start menu and search for Recovery. You can also find it in Control panel.

Click on “Configure System Restore“.

Under the tab “System Protection“, choose the system drive and click “Configure…“.

Select “Disable system protection“. Click “OK“.

As a final step right click on your System Drive and choose “Properties“.

Go to Tools tab and click on “Optimize“.

Select your System Drive (C:) and click the “Optimize” button.

Now restart and reopen Disk Management, you will be able to shrink your system partition as you wish.

There you have it!

You have just learned how to shrink & extend your system partition in Windows 10 using Disk Management without any third party software!

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment down below.