Resize Disk Partition for Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008, 2012

Issue

C drive on my Windows Server 2008 is running out of disk space, so I open the "Disk Management" and select "Shrink Volumes" option to squeeze some free space from E drive. However, the "Extend Volumes" option on C drive is grayed out. How can I add the free space to C drive in this situation?

Resize C Drive for Windows Server

If you want to resize C drive on Windows Server, Windows built-in tool might be helpful in some situation. For example, you can run "Disk Management" on Windows 2008 and Windows 2012 to extend a partition or shrink a partition. You can run Diskpart command on Windows Server 2003, 2008, etc to resize a NTFS partition. However, if you are unable to resize C drive with the Windows built-in tool, you may need to rely on third-party partition software.

Windows Server partition manager is professional Server partition software, which supports all Windows Servers. With help of Windows Server partition manager, you are able to:

• Resize C drive on Windows Server 2003

• Extend system partition on Windows SBS 2003

• Fix problem when PC shows low disk space on Windows Server 2003 C drive

• Resize disk partition on Windows 2008, SBS 2008, 2012, etc

• Extend or shrink NTFS and FAT32 partition without rebooting computer

• Move unallocated space close to the partition you need to resize

Server C Drive Resizing Step by Step

Step1. Download, install and launch Windows Server partition manager. Right click a partition that has enough free space and choose "Resize/Move" option.

Step2. Move the arrow to shrink the selected partition, and then you can see some unallocated space. You need to move the unallocated space close to the C drive.

Step3. Right click C drive and choose "Resize/Move" option.

Step4. You need to move the arrow to add the unallocated space to C drive and then click "Apply" button.

 

Resize Disk Partition on Windows Server

Most of the time, it is C drive that needs to be resized on Windows Server in order to get rid of low disk space warning. However sometimes, you may need to resize other partitions to meet your needs to save more data. Windows Server partition manager is capable of resizing C partition and other partitions easily and safely. This partition software provides data protection technology to keep disk data safe even if computer turns off unexpectedly due to power failure, hardware failure or other unknown reasons.

Why Diskpart Failed to Resize Disk Partition?

As mentioned above, Diskpart command is able to help resize disk partition on some Windows Server like Windows Server 2003, Server 2008, etc. However, Diskpart command might fail to resize disk partition sometimes. If you want to resize disk partition with Diskpart command, you should know:

1. Diskpart cannot resize FAT disk partition, so you need to convert the FAT partition to NTFS.

2. Diskpart cannot extend a system partition, so you may always receive message like "the selected volume cannot be extended" when you want to extend C drive.

3. Diskpart cannot move partition, if there is no unallocated space adjacent to the partition you want to extend, you will be unable to extend the partition with Diskpart command.

Why "Extend Volumes" Grayed out on C Drive?

Compared with Diskpart command, it is much easier to extend disk partition in "Disk Management". However, why "Extend Volumes" is disabled sometimes?

First of all, unallocated space is required on the same hard disk when you want to extend a partition. Therefore, the "Extend Volumes" option might be disabled if there is no unallocated space on the same hard disk. In this situation, you need to shrink other partition to produce some unallocated space.

In addition, the unallocated space must be adjacent to C drive. If the unallocated space is not right near to C drive, the "Extend Volumes" option will also grayed out.

See Also

Extend system partition on windows server
download partition magic to extend system partition on windows server 2000, 2003, 2008, 2012, SBS 2003, SBS 2008, and other Windows Servers…
Windows server system partition resizing
system partition plays an important role in windows server, so it is necessary to extend system partition when it doesn’t have enough free disk space…
SBS 2003 C drive runs on low disk space
what will you do if c drive is running out of disk space on windows sbs 2003? Do you want to increase the size of c drive…
Windows 2003 extend system partition
you need to use partition magic software if you want to extend system partition on windows server 2003 without losing any data…
Resize system partition with partition magic
partition magic is a specialized partition tool that can work on all windows servers such as windows 2000, windows 2003, windows 2008 and more…