[Fixed]The volume you have selected may not be extended - 2 ways

Why diskpart says the volume you have selected may not be extended

There are many possible causes that may prevent your volume from being extended with diskpart or the Extend Volume would greyed out in Disk Management.

• 1, No closeby free space at the right side of the drive that you want to extend -> You may delete the right partition to create free space when it's non-OS partition
• 2, Cannot extend system partition on Windows 11/10 -》 Free tool Partition Resizer can help extend c drive
• 3, The file system is FAT -> Free tool Partition Resizer can help extend a FAT drive (You need to create some space from another drive if there were no free space with this free tool)
• 4, You may not extend oem esp or recovery partition -> (We would not recommend you extend an OEM or recovery partition)
• 5, Extending system reserved partition on Windows 11/10 using cmd would fail

2 Ways to Fix CANNOT Extend Volume

Resize Disk Volume Using Freeware IM-Magic Partition Resizer

IM-Magic partition Resizer is an advanced tool that can help change partition size without losing data.

Here are the steps.

Step1, Download and launch the IM-Magic Partition Resizer

Download for Win 11-XP | Download for Win Server

Step2, Right click the partition you want to shrink to produce some unallocated space at first. Resize Disk Volume Using IM-Magic Partition Resizer

(If there are already some free space on the disk next to the c drive or the target drive, you may directly right click the partition in Partition Resizer, and then go to RESIZE/MOVE PARTITION to claim the free space even when it's a FAT/FAT32 partition.)

Step3, Right click the drive you want to expand, click “Resize/Move” from the drop-down menu and drag the cursor on the colourful storage bar to extend the volume.

If there is another partition between c-drive and unallocated space, right click that partition and move the unallocated space to the left in the software.

When the unallocated space becomes adjacent to c-drive, right click C-Drive and click “Resize/Move”. Extend the c-drive by acquiring the grayed-out space.

Resize Disk Volume Using IM-Magic Partition Resizer

Also read: how to move free space close to c drive, or how to move space from D to C drive

Way2 - Extend Volume using Diskpart in WinPE

When the system c drive is NTFS file system with contiguous right free space, you may use the following cmd to extend the drive in boot mode.

Step1, Restart the PC, and press the key F2 to enter the boot mode (Key may vary according to different brands of computers, some with F8, some with F12, some with F2 that you need to check your own pc boot key by typing your pc brand)

Step2, Choose the command prompt, and type diskpart and press enter

Step3, Type the following commands

• list volume
• select volume 1
• extend

 

C volume may not be extended with diskpart

The problem: C drive cannot be extended in Windows 11 10 no matter with diskparrt or disk management.

Solution: Extend c drive with Partition Resizer without losing data (100% free, needs to create free space from another partition at first, and then move the unallocated space next to c drive by moving the in between partitions.)

	Problem	Solutions
C drive	cannot be extended with diskpart, extend volume greyed out in disk management	1, no right closeby free space -> Delete the right closeby volume, or create some with free tool Partition Resizer (Diskpart or Windows built-in features will not extend c drive even there were right side free space, or you may do this under WINPE boot mode) 2, shrink large volume to create free space, and delete volume that stands between the free space and the c drive to make all right closeby space free 3, shrink large volume with Partition Resizer, and move free space next to c drive with Partition Resizer, and then extend c drive
D E F etc. partition	cannot extend volume when no free space at right side	Delete right side volume to create free space, or you may use Partition Resizer to resize any partition without losing data.

Also read: how to move unallocated free space

Video - how to fix the volume cannot be extended in Windows