Resize C drive in Windows Server 2012

Updated on: November 16, 2019

This article introduces how to resize C: drive partition in Windows Server 2012 R2. 3 ways to adjust size of volume C for Server 2012 without losing data.

Limitation to resize C drive in Server 2012 DM

Many server administrators want to adjust size of allocated partitions without reinstalling OS or restoring from backup. For example: some people forget to edit partition while installing Windows, so C: drive occupied all space of this disk, then they need to resize C: drive smaller to create more volumes. In many servers, system C drive is getting full, so the administrators want to resize C drive larger.

No matter you want to adjust C: drive smaller or larger, Microsoft provides native Disk Management tool to help you. However, both Shrink Volume and Extend Volume functions work under limited condition:

Thus, you can't resize partition C to expand other one, or shrink other volume to expand C drive. In other words, Disk Management can only helps you decrease C drive to create new or enlarge C drive by deleting the right adjacent partition.

Better way to resize partition C in 2012 server

With NIUBI Partition Editor, there are no such restrictions, it is able to:

  • Make Unallocated space on either side while shrinking a partition.
  • Combine Unallocated space to either contiguous partition by 1 step.
  • Move and combine Unallocated space to any nonadjacent partition.

In other words, NIUBI helps you:

  • Resize volume C to expand partition D or the left System Reserved partition.
  • Resize other data volumes to extend system partition C.

All you need to do is dragging and dropping on the disk map.

Resize C drive

Download NIUBI Partition Editor and you'll see all disk partitions with structure and other information.

There is C, D, E and system reserved partition in Disk 0. Original C: drive is 40GB and D: is 70GB.

NPE Server

Steps to shrink D and resize C drive in Windows Server 2012:

Step 1: Right click drive D: and select "Resize/Move Volume", drag left border towards right in the pop-up window. (or enter an amount directly)

Shrink D

Then drive D is resized to 50GB, 20GB Unallocated is generated on the left side.

Drive D shrank

Step 2: Right click C: drive and select "Resize/Move Volume" again, drag right border towards right to combine Unallocated space.

Extend C drive

Then system volume C is resized to 60GB.

C drive extended

Step 3: Click Apply on top left to take effect to real disk partition. (All operations before this step only work in virtual mode.)

Watch the video how to resize other partitions to expand C drive:

Video guide

How to resize partition C in Windows Server 2012 to expand other volumes:

Video guide

Adjust C drive size with other disk

Following the steps above, you can resize partitions and transfer unused/Unallocated space inside a hard disk easily. However, if there is no other partition or not enough unused space in the same disk, no partitioning software can transfer space from another separated disk.

In this situation, you can clone disk to a larger one and resize C: drive with extra disk space, follow the steps in the video:

Video guide

NIUBI Partition Editor provides several ways to help you resize C drive and other volumes in Windows Server 2012, 2008, 2003, 2016 and 2019. Select corresponding method according to your disk partition configuration.

Better than other software, it has unique technologies to protect data and save time:

Resides resizing partition, NIUBI Partition Editor is able to merge, copy, convert, hide, wipe, defrag, scan partition and much more.

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