How to Move Partition in Windows Server 2019/2022

Sometimes you need to move partition in Windows Server 2019/2022. For example: Extend Volume greyed out for C drive after shrinking D with Disk Management, leaving the Unallocated space in a puzzle. This problem can be solved easily if you can move partition D to the right. In some servers, you need to move Recovery partition, too. This article introduces how to move partition in Windows Server 2019/2022 without losing data. Move partition to the left/right on a disk and move partition to another disk.

Cannot move partition in Server 2019/2022 Disk Management

Disk Management in Windows Server 2003 can only do some basic operations such as create, delete and format partition. Windows Server 2008 improved the ability by adding new "Shrink Volume" and "Extend Volume" functions to help resize partition without losing data (in most cases). However, only few partitions can be resized.

Disadvantages of Disk Management to change partition size:

• It only supports shrinking and extending NTFS partition.
• It can only make Unallocated space on the right while shrinking a partition.
• It can only extend a NTFS partition when there's contiguous Unallocated space on the right side.

This is the reason why many people feedback that Extend Volume is disabled for C drive after shrinking D. Disk Management cannot make Unallocated space on the left when shrinking volume. Therefore, you need partition software to move partition D to the right and make Unallocated space contiguous to C drive.

How to move Recovery/D partition in Server 2019/2022

There are many server partition software that is able to shrink, extend and move partition in Windows Server 2022/2019, but because there's potential system/partition damage risk, you'd better make a backup in advance and run the safest tool. Better than other software, NIUBI Partition Editor has advanced technologies to protect your system and data:

• Virtual Mode - all operations are listed as pending for preview before clicking "Apply" to take effect.
• Cancel-at-will - if you applied wrong operations, you can cancel the ongoing operations without damage partitions.
• 1 Second Rollback - if any error is detected while resizing partitions, it automatically reverts server to original status in a flash.
• Hot Clone - clone disk partition without server interruption. 

How to move partition D in Windows Server 2019/2022 to the right/left:

1. Download NIUBI Partition Editor, right click D: drive and select "Resize/Move Volume".
2. In the pop-up window, put the mouse pointer in the middle of D drive and drag it towards right. Then D: drive will be moved to the right and Unallocated space will be moved to the left.
3. Click Apply on top left to confirm and execute.

Watch the video how to move partition D and add Unallocated space to C drive:

In some servers, there's a Recovery partition in middle of C and D drive. In that case, before adding Unallocated space to C drive, you should continue to move Recovery partition to the right.

How to move Recovery partition in Windows Server 2019/2022: 

Right click this Recovery partition in NIUBI Partition Editor and select "Resize/Move" option, put mouse pointer in the middle of this partition and drag towards right in the pop-up window.

The method is similar no matter you want to move D drive, or move Recovery/EFI partition in Windows Server 2019/2022 and previous versions. But if you want to move a partition to another disk, the method is different.

How to move partition to another disk

Sometimes you need to move a partition from one disk to another in Windows Server 2019/2022. For example: there are only C and D drives on a disk but both partitions are full, so you may move volume D to another disk and add its disk space to C drive. Another solution is copying entire disk to a larger one.

Besides shrinking, extending and moving partition in Windows Server 2019/2022/2016/2012/2008/2003, NIUBI Partition Editor helps do many other disk partition management operations.

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