Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of roy_batty
roy_battyFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

asked on

How can I use space disk space at the end of the disk to increase capacity of the c:\ drive at the beginning of the disk

I have a server which is running very low on c:\ drive disk space.

When I look a diskmgmt I see that the disk has a small c:\ partition. Next to that is the d:\ drive which has enough free space. Then on the right there is 150gb of unallocated space.

How can I use this unallocated space on the c:\ drive.

I was going to add the unallocated space to the end of the d:\ drive. Then shrink the d:\ drive so there would then be unallocated space adjacent to the c:\ drive. I could then expand the c:\ drive into that space.

Is this possible with diskmgmt or do I need to use a better partitioning tool?
Avatar of Dr. Klahn
Dr. Klahn

What version of Windows is on this system?  Some versions can expand and shrink partitions, some can not.  Personally I don't trust the Windows built-in tools and prefer something like Paragon Partition Manager, which is available as a free tool.  It works in every case I've tried it, but it is not fast.  It can take several hours for a partition shrink or a partition expansion.

https://www.paragon-software.com/free/pm-express/

Before trying anything at all, do a full backup of the entire system drive, including all partitions on it.  Then if anything goes wrong you have a place to stand.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Steve
Steve
Flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of roy_batty

ASKER

The server is MS Server 2012 standard (not r2)

I think i have used paragon before. Does it work while the OS is loaded or is it a prebook thing?
here's the microsoft guide for 2012 (non-R2) but it only works for space next to the drive you want to extend.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/extend-a-basic-volume

I suspect you'll be best with 3rd party stuff in your case. Paragon works fine and can be used in pre-boot or during OS depending if you want to install anything or not.
Hi
diskmgmt cannot make use of free disk space at the end of D drive, to do this you need third party partition management tools.

i solved the same problem on my work last week,
1. use snapshot drive  as free partition imaging tool to take image from D drive.
2. copy the image you got from step 1 to other server or USB disk.
3.  from diskmgmt  delete D drive.
4. from diskmgmt  extend C drive as much as you want.
5. create D partition from the un allocated space.
6. use snapshot drive tool to re-image D drive with the image you have.
7. done.
I've had good success with AOEMI but paragon should be just as good.  To expand a drive the sectors have to be contiguous.. you could just MOVE the D partition to the end freeing up 150GB between C and D.. you may want to extend C 75GB and the same with D
Sorry ive not repsonded until now.

I am looking at using AOEMI. My question is, I want to relocate and resize various partitions but wont be touching the system (c:\drive) partition. Will the server need to boot into some kind of preboot environment to do this or will it do it all whilst the windows system is loaded.
Should be possible on-line if you're not messing with the system partition, unless you have something specific on the volumes you're amending (e.g pagefile Exchange/SQL databases etc.)
as long as you move the d: partition start location further back to do the resize then you should be able to from disk management expand the C: partition without having to do a restart.