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How to extend C drive on Windows Server 2012

Hi,

I am trying to add space to the C drive on our server.  Our C drive is located on the same disk as our D drive, which has plenty of space.  I shrunk the D drive, and now I see "free space" on the disk.  However, the free space is not located directly next to the C drive, so I am unable to extend it.

How can I move this free space to the C drive? The file system for these drives is "NTFS", the layout is "simple", and the type is "basic".  We are using Windows server 2012.

Thanks,
Chris
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Lee W, MVP
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In most cases, rather than mess around with partitions, I would ask why is your C: drive in need of space?  Clean it up / change how data is stored.  Doing so would be less dangerous and less disruptive to your users.  Otherwise, you'll have to move the data on D: so that it's at the end of the drive and not next to the C: drive.  This would require downtime and a LOT of time as large amounts of data do not move quickly.  Third party tools like GPARTED can do it for free but you would want to make sure you have a FULL backup first as repartitioning like this CAN corrupt data and drives.
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Thanks for the quick response.  This is a new server, and the C: drive only came with 40GB, most of which is used by Windows.  After installing a few necessary applications, we are out of space.  I've cleaned it up, and all data/files that can be offloaded from C: already have been.

So there is no way to do this within the disk management tool, built into windows server? I'm quite new to all of this, so I apologize for my ignorance... I thought this would be a straightforward task.
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Lee W, MVP
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Yep, pre-installed... Thanks - I'll try the "backup D:, delete, extend, and recreate D:" approach.