Sometimes you need to shrink C drive in Windows Server 2016, for example: you forgot to edit disk partition when installing Operating System, so all available disk space are occupied by C: drive. As we know, it is a bad idea to put everything into system partition. Sometimes you need to shrink C drive to extend system reserved partition or other data volume. Windows Server 2016 has "Shrink Volume" function in Disk Management tool, but sometimes it cannot shrink C drive. This article introduces how to shrink C drive in Windows Server 2016 with Disk Management and safe disk partition software.
Shrink C drive partition in Server 2016 with Disk Management
From Windows Server 2008, Microsoft added "Shrink Volume" function in native Disk Management utility, which is able to decrease partition size without losing data and without rebooting server. It is fast and easy to use.
How to shrink C: drive in Windows Server 2016 with Disk Management:
- Press Windows and X together on the keyboard and select Disk Management in the list.
- Right click C drive and select Shrink Volume.
![Shrink C drive]()
- Waiting for Disk Management to query available free space, then simply click Shrink to decrease with default maximum available space, or enter a smaller amount by yourself.
![Enter amount]()
In a short time, system C partition is shrunk to 39.45GB in my server, 120GB free space is now converted to unallocated behind it.
It is easy to shrink partition in Server 2016 via Disk Management, but as I said above, it can't shrink C drive in some situations.
The cases cannot shrink C drive in Windows Server 2016
In fact, "Shrink Volume" only supports NTFS partition, so it is grayed out when you shrink a FAT32 partition. However, most of system partitions are formatted with NTFS by default, so it is not an issue while shrinking system C drive.
There are 3 common issue when shrinking C drive in Windows Server 2016 with Disk Management.
1. Not enough space
When I click Shrink, I received the error message - "There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation."
Disk Management gives maximum available space in the shrinking window by default. Before clicking Shrink button, if any Windows Update or other large files saved into C drive, the available free space is less than calculated. If you also receive this error, simply run Shrink Volume again.
2. File System error
Sometimes, when there's File System error in a partition, Disk Management won't allow shrinking it. As you see in the screenshot, there's 7.53GB free space in system C drive, but in the shrinking window, available free space is shown as 0.
3. Unmovable files
If there are large amount of free space in C drive but Disk Management gives you little space to shrink, it means that there are some "unmovable" files located in this partition. This is another common issue while shrinking C drive in Windows Server 2016.
In the dialog box, there is a tip "You cannot shrink a volume beyond the point where any unmovable files are located."
For example: if the "unmovable" files are located in block 3, you cannot shrink volume C to block 2 even though it is blank.
In this case, you need to run NIUBI Partition Editor, which is able to move these unmovable files, so you can shrink C drive to minimum size if you want.
Better way to decrease C drive in Windows 2016 server
Comparing with Windows Disk Management, NIUIBI Partition Editor has more advantages such as:
- It supports shrinking and extending both NTFS and FAT32 partitions.
- It is able to make unallocated space on either left or right while shrinking partitions.
- It is able to merge unallocated space on either contiguous partition by 1 step.
- It can move unmovable files, so you can shrink partition to minimum size if you want.
- It is able to move and combine unallocated space to any non-adjacent partitions on the same disk.
- Copy, convert, defrag, hide, wipe partition, scan bad sectors and much more functions.
How to shrink C drive in Windows Server 2016 without losing data:
- Download NIUBI Partition Editor, right click C drive and select "Resize/Move Volume".
![NIUBI Partition Editor]()
- In the pop-up window, drag either border towards the other side. If you drag right border towards left, unallocated space is made on the right side of C drive.
- Click Apply on top left to execute. (NIUBI is designed to work in its virtual mode, real disk partitions won't be changed until click Apply to confirm.)
How to extend other partition after shrinking C: drive in Windows Server 2016:
Besides shrinking and extending volume in Windows Server 2003 - 2025, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other disk partition management operations. Better than other tools, it has 1 Second Rollback, Virtual Mode, Cancel-at-will and Hot-Clone technologies to protect system and data.
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