0

I have Sony VAIO with Windows7 premium 64-bit and I'm trying to get more free space for drive C -which has only around 8 Gigs free, while I had 48 Gigs free on drive D- so I was thinking of merging then after I made search on superuser and here I found out that merging could cause problems and it is better to shrink one of partitions and "add the new free data to the C".

So I shrank drive D and got free space, but couldn't convert the new space to primary -I don't know if have to do this this in order to get the extra space on my C drive-, when I try to do it easeUS throws this error:

The operation could not be completed there is no empty slot in mbr

Made another search again on superuser and Google see what is this about and got bunch of useful results, most importantly:

bottom line is, I can't have another primary drive since I already have 3 primary ones and from one of the results:

So what you should do is clean up and consolidate some partitions. Such as the recovery partition, it is empty and contains nothing, so delete it

So, couple of questions

First: is it safe to remove the Recovery partition? because if so then I can even have more free space -7.6 Gigs- for my C drive.

Second: if I managed to do that successfully, how can I add these two free spaces volumes to the C drive?

I'm kind of a newbie when it comes to partitioning and HDD, Thanks in advance

4
  • If you have made your factory recovery media (dvd or usb) it is safe to delete the recovery partition.
    – Moab
    Jan 13, 2016 at 0:52
  • I have WindowsImageBackup on one of my drives as well as on set of DVDs, beside a Ghost image for my C and those are from couple years ago, I'm not sure if this could be considered as recovery options Jan 13, 2016 at 1:06
  • Why are you using bold on the word user?
    – Ramhound
    Jan 13, 2016 at 1:07
  • To mimic this site logo :) Jan 13, 2016 at 1:08

2 Answers 2

2

You're barking up the wrong tree -- you don't need to create a new primary partition. What you need to do is to move the free space out of your extended partition in such a way that you can expand your primary partition into that space.

The details of how to do this vary greatly depending on your exact current partition layout. Such things are also often best described with diagrams. As one simple example, take the following part of the GParted documentation:

http://gparted.org/display-doc.php%3Fname%3Dmoving-space-between-partitions

This shows how to resize partitions to expand a primary partition that immediately precedes an extended partition with one logical partition, taking the space from the logical partition. If your layout differs from this, you may need to perform more partition moves or otherwise change the procedure. Some details will also differ depending on the tool you use (GParted vs. something else). If you need more advice, you should post details, perhaps including a screen shot of whatever GUI partitioning tool you're using (EaseUS, it seems).

One more comment: Moving and resizing partitions are inherently dangerous activities. Be sure you have adequate backups before you perform such tasks!

1
  • I believe I was barking up the wrong tree but it is only because it didn't give me any option to add the new space to the C until I removed the other primary drive "recovery" which was already unused. thank yo ufor the answer and for the link I really appreciate it, UpVoted! Jan 16, 2016 at 1:41
0

I posted the question on here before I do anything to be sure of my steps, then the problem I was facing was when I shrink the D drive, I couldn't "resize/move" the unallocated free space to C drive. the logical drives set as well as the new free space were surrounded by that light-bluish outline which I couldn't move out from it:

enter image description here

and when I try to resize the C after having the new free space it doesn't show any indication for available new space.

enter image description here

Then after I deleted the "recovery" partition -which was already free and unused- I noted that only now I can add that new free space to the C, I don't know why this happened this way but it worked and every thing is working normally since that.

Thanks all.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .