How to Extend System Partition on Windows Server 2012

How to extend system partition on Windows Server 2012 without data loss? In this page, a market-leading Windows Server disk manager will be provided and offer a step-by-step guide.

Dervish

By Dervish / Updated on December 21, 2023

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Why extend system partition on Windows Server 2012?

Nowadays, more and more people use Windows Server 2012 to deal with their business. However, the system partition of Windows Server 2012 may run out of space gradually. When you receive a low disk space alert on Server 2012, then your computer performance will be affected to some degree. So, it is necessary to extend system drive on Windows Server 2012, which can help avoid system crash and improve the running speed in the end.

Extend system drive in Server 2012 with built-in Disk Management

When the system partition is almost out of space, most users will decide to shrink another partition (like D drive) to extend C drive. In Windows Server 2012, you can extend and shrink drives with Disk Management. But, unfortunately, you may find the "Extend Volume" option grayed out even after you shrink another partition.

Extend Volume Greyed Out Server 2012

Why? That’s because Disk Management can only extend a partition when there is an adjacent unallocated space behind it. When you shrink the D partition, the unallocated space will display behind the partition (D drive), not C drive. So you cannot use this space to extend the system C: drive. Thus, you might wonder whether you can move the D drive to the right side. Unfortunately, Disk Management does not offer this feature.

The only workaround to extend system partition in Windows Server 2012 Disk Management is to delete volume D to make contiguous unallocated space. But that will lead to data loss unless you back up the partition in advance. Or, you can run a third-party partition manager to extend the system partition without deleting any volumes/losing data. Read on, please!

Top partition manager to extend C drive on Server 2012 without data loss

To select a 3rd party tool to extend system drive in Server 2012 without data loss, you should concern about its security, stability, and usability. Considered all factors, AOMEI Partition Assistant Server Edition can be a great recommendation. Compared with Disk Management, it adds the “Move Partition” feature, allowing you to move the partition between unallocated space and target partition to right side. It is also able to directly merge non-adjacent unallocated space into C drive via the “Merge Partition”.

Moreover, if there is no unallocated space on the same disk, you don’t need to create one by shrinking or deleting another partition first of all because its “Allocate Free Space” function can help assign some free space from one partition to another directly. This method is relatively simple and convenient. You can refer to the following steps:

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Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Server. Right click partition D (or another partition with enough free space) and select the "Allocate Free Space" option.

Allocate Free Space

Step 2. In the pop-up window, type the value and select C:(system partition). Click "OK" to back to the main screen.

Allocate Free Space From D To C Drive

Step 3. Now you can see there are three pending operations. Just click “Apply” to “Proceed” to commit the pending operation.

Proceed

Besides this solution, you can also choose the option of “Extend Partition Wizard” from “Tools” in the top toolbar. When you select it, in the pop-up window, the first method is extending system partition on Windows Server 2012. Click “Next” and follow the wizard to finish the rest steps.

Extend Partition Wizard

Extend System Partition

Bottom Line

With the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant, you can extend system partition on Windows Server 2012 without data loss in a few steps. So it can be a great alternative to Disk Management when the native tool cannot extend C drive.

In addition, AOMEI Partition Assistant Server also supports convert MBR to GPT disk without data loss and vice versa, convert dynamic to basic disk without affecting OS, migrate OS to SSD without reinstalling Windows, etc.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Server works well on Windows personal computer operating system: Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista. To install this partition manager on unlimited computers within one company, please turn to AOMEI Partition Assistant Unlimited.

 
Dervish
Dervish · Staff Editor
Dervish is an English editor of AOMEI Technology; He is delicated to offering users easy and effecitve solutions for issuses related to disks and partitoins. In his spare time, he enjoy wathcning films, playing footable, traveling and so on.