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This article will show you how to Fix ‘Extend Volume Greyed Out’ issue on Windows 11/10. The ‘Extend Volume’ option within the Disk Management tool has, according to multiple reports that have been submitted by users, been disabled and is currently unavailable for use. You can maintain the partitions on your hard disk by using a built-in tool in Windows called Disk Management. This tool allows you to create, delete, or extend the volumes on your hard disk. However, according to the reports, the ‘Extend volume’ option in Disk Management is grayed out, which indicates that users are unable to extend a specific volume. This is the case because the reports are inaccurate.
If you are running out of space in a particular drive or volume on your Windows computer, you will typically find that the Extend Volume option in the Disk Management Console has been disabled. At this point, the only thing you can do to clear some space is to delete some of the data on the drive or volume. When you are getting close to running out of space on your system volume or any of the other primary partitions, extending a volume may be an absolute necessity in certain situations. The type of format used for the volume is one of the factors that can cause the option to be disabled on the volume. Nevertheless, the following paragraphs will provide you with additional information about this problem and gow to Fix ‘Extend Volume Greyed Out’ issue on Windows 11/10.
What is the ‘Extend Volume’ option?
You can expand the size of a volume in Windows Disk Management by selecting the “Extend Volume” option. This will add space that has not been allocated to the volume. This can be helpful if you need to increase the size of your system partition or if you have a lot of unallocated space on your hard drive that you want to use. Both of these scenarios are good candidates for using this feature. On the other hand, a number of people who use Windows 11 have mentioned that the Extend Volume option in the Disk Management console is unavailable to them in the current version of the operating system.
Because of this, the user is unable to proceed with extending the volume and removing the warning about low disk space that appears on their Windows 11 computer. If you are one of the users who are experiencing issues with the extend volume option being disabled in Windows 11, then you have arrived at the correct location. mainly due to the fact that this guide outlines all of the efficient solutions that you can implement in order to possibly solve the problem. Let’s go through the possible solutions one by one, shall we?
Causes of the ‘Extend Volume Greyed Out’ issue on Windows 11/10
- Unallocated Space: To extend a volume, there must be unallocated space adjacent to it. If there is no unallocated space or if the unallocated space is not contiguous to the volume you want to extend, the option will be greyed out.
- File System Limitations: If the volume is formatted with certain file systems like FAT32, you may not be able to extend it. NTFS is more flexible in this regard.
- Basic Disk: If the disk is configured as a basic disk and not a dynamic disk, you won’t be able to extend volumes. You can only extend volumes on dynamic disks.
- System or Boot Partition: You can’t extend the system or boot partition using the built-in Windows Disk Management tool. You’ll need third-party software for these partitions.
- Unsupported Volume Types: Some types of volumes, like recovery partitions or OEM partitions, cannot be extended using the “Extend Volume” option.
- Drive Letter Assignment: If the volume doesn’t have a drive letter assigned, you won’t be able to extend it. Assigning a drive letter might make the option available.
How to Fix ‘Extend Volume Greyed Out’ issue on Windows 11/10
Convert to NTFS

- For Windows to find cmd, type it in.
- Find the Command Prompt and right-click on it. Then, choose Run as administrator.
- Click “Yes” when User Account Control (UAC) asks you where you want to let changes happen.
- You need to type the following in the new window and then press Enter:
change [drive_letter]: NTFs file system - To finish the conversion, just do what it says.
Convert basic disk to dynamic disk
- Start up Disk Management.
- Pick Disk 0 or 1 as the disk you want to change, then right-click it and choose “Convert to Dynamic Disk.”
- To finish the conversion, just do what it says.
- You can try to expand the volume again after the disk has been converted.
Create contiguous unallocated space
- Right-click on the Start button and choose “Disk Management” to open Disk Management.
- Find the partition you want to make bigger and the partition next to it that you want to make smaller to free up space.
- Pick “Shrink Volume” from the menu when you right-click on the partition next to it.
- Type in how much space you want to lose, then click the “Shrink” button.
- Right-click on the partition you want to expand after the process is done.
- To extend the volume, select it and do what it says.
Use third-party partition software
- Get and set up a third-party partition management program that you trust.
- Find the partition you want to expand in the software.
- Choose the option to change the partition’s size or make it bigger.
- To finish the process, follow the software’s instructions.
Conclusion
When you try to manage the space on your hard drive on your computer, you might notice that the “Extend Volume” option is grayed out. This indicates that you are unable to increase the size of the volume on the drive in question. In most cases, this takes place in relation to the system partition or the partition that stores the Windows system files. There is probably a long list of things that led to this problem, but if you want to increase the volume, you should follow these steps. You, yourself, are capable of raising the volume by utilizing a few different approaches. If you want to know more information about this issue so you can visit Microsoft Official Website.
Questions and Answers
You’ve noticed that the New Simple Volume option is disabled and you’re curious as to why. The fact that the disk being used as the source is an MBR disk is the primary cause of the ‘New Simple Volume greyed out’ error that can occur. MBR disks have a maximum hard drive size of 2 terabytes and support a maximum of four partitions, which can be broken down as three primary partitions and one extended partition.
When there is no continuous free space available, Windows 10 and Windows 11’s Disk Management will not allow you to extend the size of the C drive. It is not a violation of any standards to delete a partition in order to obtain adequate free space.
If you want to extend the volume of the C drive, but you discover that the option to do so is grayed out in Windows 11, the reason for this is that there is no free or unallocated space after the drive C partition. Therefore, you need to delete a partition that is empty or isn’t being used. It will leave a blank space or space that has not been allocated next to the primary volume.