This article introduces how to resize hard drive partition in Windows Server 2012 R2 without losing data. 3 ways to adjust size of hard drive with detailed steps.
1. Resize hard drive partition with Diskpart cmd
When resizing hard drive partition in Windows Server 2012, there are Windows native tools and third party partition editor software. Diskpart is integrated from Windows XP and works via command prompt. Disk Management added Shrink and Extend Volume functions from Windows 7, it works with graphical interface.
How to resize hard drive partition in Windows Server 2012 with Diskpart:
To shrink partition with Diskpart:
- Press Windows and R on the keyboard, type diskpart and press Enter.
- Type list volume and press Enter in Diskpart command prompt window, then you'll see all partitions.
- Type select volume X and press Enter, X is drive letter or number of the partition that you want to shrink.
- Type shrink desired=XX and press Enter. XX is the amount of space to shrink (in MB).
To extend partition with Diskpart:
- Type select volume D and press Enter. (D is the letter or number of the adjacent partition on the right)
- Type delete volume and press Enter.
- Type select volume C and press Enter. (C is the letter or number of the partition that you want to expand)
- Type extend and press Enter.
Disadvantages of Diskpart:
- Only NTFS partition can be shrunk and extended, other types of partitions are not supported.
- Unallocated space can only be made on the right after shrinking a partition.
- If there are some unmovable files are located, it can only shrink little space.
- To extend a partition, there must be adjacent Unallocated space on the right.
This is the reason why deleting drive D before extending system partition C.
2. Adjust hard drive size with Disk Management
Diskpart is easy and fast, but it doesn't show disk partition structure or any Unallocated space, so there's trouble if you do not know all disk partition structure and other information clearly.
Better than Diskpart, the GUI Disk Management tool display all single partitions with detailed parameters on the top, it also shows a disk with partition structure on the bottom.
However, Disk Management has the same restrictions with Diskpart command.
How to resize hard drive partition in Windows 2012 server with Disk Management:
- Press Windows and X on keyboard, then select Disk Management from the list.
- Right click a NTFS partition and select Shrink Volume.
- Maximum available space is given by default, click Shrink to execute or change size smaller first.
- Right click the NTFS partition with adjacent Unallocated space on the right, and select Extend Volume.
- Available disk and space is selected by default, click Next to continue.
- Click Finish to confirm and execute.
If there is no required Unallocated space, you have to delete the right contiguous partition.
Transfer files before deleting. Do not delete the partition with programs and Windows services.
3. Resize drive volume with partition editor software
Comparing with Windows native tools, NIUBI Partition Editor is much more powerful, it is able to:
- Shrink and extend both NTFS and FAT32 partitions.
- Make Unallocated space on either side while shrinking a partition.
- Shrink a partition to minimum size (if you want), because it can move these unmovable files.
- Combine Unallocated space to either continuous partition by 1 step.
- Move and combine Unallocated space to any nonadjacent partitions in the same disk.
- Merge, copy, defrag, convert, wipe, hide, scan partition and much more.
Download NIUBI Partition Editor and follow the steps in the video to resize hard drive partition in Windows Server 2012.
How to extend C: drive by resizing other partitions:
How to extend D: drive by resizing other partitions:
If you want to resize raid partition, or VMware/Hyper-V virtual disk partitions, there is no difference, just follow the steps in the video.
When there is free unused space in any other partition, you can shrink it and combine Unallocated space to the volume that is running low. However, this works inside a disk, no partitioning software can extend hard drive partition with space in another separated disk.
To VMware or Hyper-V, you can expand the virtual disk with their own tools. Extra space will be shown as Unallocated on the end of original disk. Then follow the steps in the video above to extend virtual partitions.
To physical disk, you should clone to a larger disk with NIUBI Partition Editor.
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