How to Safely Change Partition Size in Windows Server 2008 (R2)?

Hot issues on changing partition size in Windows 2008

User case 1. Last year, I bought a computer which is Windows Server 2008, after using for a period of time, in my data partition, there are many files and folders taking up the partition space. There are three data partitions, among them there is a small partition, and a big partition. I want to change the partition size, such as decreasing the big one and increasing the small one. Both partitions are set up as NTFS format.

User case 2. As time goes on, the number of applications and software stored in system partition is also increasing rapidly, therefore, c drive space will be quickly running out of space. As a result, the low disk space occurs.

How to change partition size on Server 2008 (R2)?

When being stuck with above two situations, the next what you should do is to adjust partition size (reduce the large partition size and increase the small partition size) to make all your partition size relatively reasonable based on their different data storage purposes.

However, how can you change partition size, especially increasing partition size on Windows Server 2008 (R2)? Generally, the Disk Management will be most users’ primary choice. Besides that, a third-party partition manager tool might be necessary in case that the Disk Management let you down.

Next we will introduce you these two ways as well as how they work to help change partition size in Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2.

Method 1. Adjust partition size with Disk Management

Similar to Windows 7, in Windows Server 2008, its built-in disk manager-Disk Management also can be used to resize partition size. And you can use its “Shrink Volume” and “Extend volume” to decrease and increase your partition size.

Step 1. Open Disk Management, and right click D drive to select “Shrink Volume”.

Step 2. Then you can type the amount of space to shrink in MB. You can shrink half space of the partition at most. Click “Shrink” to execute this operation.

Step 3. Then after you finish shrink volume, here you can see there is some unallocated space. From this screenshot, the space is behind d drive.

This is how to decrease the partition size via “Shrink Volume” feature. How does the “Extend Volume” work to increase partition size in Server 2008 (R2)?

If you right click c drive and select “Extend Volume”, you will find Extend Volume option will grey out. Why? Because if the unallocated space is not next to a partition you want to extend, this feature cannot work, but if it is behind the partition, you can easily extend volume to change partition size in Windows 2008.

As a workaround, you have to delete the partition (here is D drive) first after the to-be-extended volume, and then extend the C drive successfully. But deleting a partition means wiping out all data on that partition. So, is there a way to extend (C) drive without deleting partition or losing data in Server 2008?

Method 2. Change partition size safely in Windows 2008 by AOMEI Partition Assistant

If the “Extend Volume” is not clickable and you don’t want to delete another partition behind target volume, you can switch to AOMEI Partition Assistant Server. It provides simple and effective ways to change Server 2008 partition size without data loss.

To change partition size on Server 2008 (R2), it offers “resize partition”, “merge partitions”, and “allocate free space” etc. The “Resize Partition” feature is able to both shrink and extend a specific partition. You can also easily resize the BitLocker partition. Here we demonstrate how to shrink D partition and extend C drive via this function.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Server and right-click d drive to select “Resize/Move Partition”.

Step 2. Then shrink the partition size by moving the bar left side to decrease D partition size.

Note: The generated unallocated space will be behind D drive. To make it behind the C partition, please move the D partition to the right side of the unallocated space via “Move Partition”.

After you allocate some space by shrinking D partition and make it after the C drive, you can also use its “Resize Partition” feature to increase C partition size.

Step 3. Right click c drive to and select “Resize Partition”. Then move the bar right side to change Server 2008 partition size to solve your low partition space problem.

Step 4. After all operations are finished, click “Apply”.

As mentioned above, AOMEI Partition Assistant Server provides more than one method to resize partition in Windows Server 2008 (R2). The “Merge Partition” can help combine two adjacent partition into one, as well as merge unallocated space (no matter where it locates on the disk) into a partition to extend it, which breaks out the limitation of Disk Management that requires the unallocated free space must be after the target partition.

What’s more, the “Allocate Free Space” makes extending partition in Server 2008 as easy as a pie. It is able to directly assign free space from one partition to another within only three clicks.

Summary

In conclusion, it is very effective and safe to change partition size in Windows Server 2008 with the assistance of AOMEI Partition Assistant Server. In addition to Server 2008 (R2), it is also compatible with Server 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012/2025 all PCs.

Moreover, the partition magic can be used to do other related-disk and partition operations such as copying partition, migrating OS to SSD, converting system disk between MBR and GPT without deleting partition/losing data and more.