How to partition Windows Server 2008? In this tutorial, 3 basic tools – Disk Management, DiskPart, and third-party software will be provided to help with it.
Windows Server 2008 is the 4th release of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems, based on Windows Vista. On Windows Server 2008, there’re 2 ways to partition – using its inbuilt utility Disk Management or using DiskPart. Both of them help manage your partitions and can perform operations including creating and resizing partitions. In this post, we’re going to find out the best way to partition Windows Server 2008.
As mentioned above, Windows Server 2008 provides 2 free built-in utilities for disk partitioning and they’re Disk Management and DiskPart. Here, in the following contents, I’ll also bring another more powerful and easier third-party software to help get it done.
Disk Management is a Windows inbuilt utility to manage hard disks. Users can do many things including creating partitions, deleting partitions, and extending partitions with Disk Management. Next, let’s check how to partition Windows Server 2008 with this multifunctional tool.
1. Right-click on “This PC” on the desktop and select “Manage” in the dropdown menu.
2. Select “Disk Management” on the left in the opened window.
3. Find an existing partition on the disk and right-click on it.
4. Select “Shrink Volume”.
5. Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB and click on “Shrink” to proceed.
6. Now, you’ll find a piece of unallocated space appear on the right side of the original partition. Right-click on it and select “New Simple Volume”.
7. Follow the onscreen guide until the last step. (If you still want to create other partitions, don’t use up the unallocated space you just created).
8. Repeat the steps above to create other partitions.
Warning: Disk Management only supports shrinking and extend partitions in NTFS or RAW. If the partition is in NTFS 32, you have to convert FAT32 to NTFS first.
Compared with Disk Management, DiskPart shares similar features but is more complex. But if you’re a pro user, it’s also a recommended way to partition Windows Server 2008.
1. In the desktop’s search box, type “diskpart” and hit “ENTER”.
2. Type “list disk” to display all existing disks on your computer.
3. Type “select disk x” and hit “ENTER”. “x” represents the disk number.
4. Type “create partition primary size=10000” to set the size of the partition you wish to create. Hit “ENTER”.
5. Type “list partition” and you’ll see the sequence number of the partition you’re going to create. Hit “ENTER”.
6. Type “select partition ‘y’” and hit “ENTER”. “y” stands for the partition sequence number.
7. Type “format fs=ntfs quick label=”Backup Partition” and hit “ENTER” to format the partition as NTFS.
8. Type “assign letter=G” to give a drive letter to the partition you created.
As you can see above, DiskPart is Powerful and can help us do many things. However, one of its biggest disadvantages is its complexity. If you’re not a professional user, this tool can be hard for you.
If you have been through the 2 methods above, I believe you’ve found that in the 2 methods, you can only create 1 single partition every time. How about creating multiple ones simultaneously? In this case, another more powerful third-party software – AOMEI Partition Assistant Server – is recommended. By using this software, you can split the only C drive into 2 partitions with “Split Partition”. This is especially useful when you boot a new computer for the first time; Or you can easily create up to 6 partitions at once when there is only unallocated space on a new hard drive with the feature “Quick Partition”.
What’s the best way for Windows Server 2008 partition? Try the demo of the most feature-rich software.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Server. Wait until all disks and partitions appear on the main interface.
Step 2. Right-click on the C drive which is the only partition on the disk and select “Split Partition” in the dropdown menu.
Step 3. Customize the size of the partition you want to create and hit “OK”.
Step 4. After returning to the main interface, hit “Apply” as the screenshot displays and then, hit “Proceed” to start the process.
Wait several seconds before it’s completed.
Sometimes, you may not be satisfied with the size of a partition and want to make changes to the partition; or sometimes, problem like C drive full occurs. In these cases, you need to increase partition size or shrink a partition. But how? Luckily, AOMEI Partition Assistant Server can still do the job. With its features “Resize/Move Partition” and “Merge Partitions”, users can freely change the size of a certain partition without any data loss.
What’s the best tool to partition Windows Server 2008? In this tutorial, we compared Disk Management, DiskPart, and powerful third-party software AOMEI Partition Assistant Server. By comparison, we can find the third-party software is much more versatile and secure in disk management like partitioning. It’s friendly to novices and helps settle down your problem within only several steps. If you wish to provide billable technical services to your clients, you’d better try the software’s Technician edition.