How to Use Disk Management in Windows Server 2012

Content

Overview of Disk Management in Windows Server 2012
How to use Disk Management in Windows Server 2012?
Windows Server 2012 DM alternative: AOMEI Partition Assistant Server
Conclusion

Overview of Disk Management in Windows Server 2012 (R2)

Want to partition hard dive in Windows Server 2012 with the disk partition tool Disk Management? You need to know it before using it. Windows Server 2012 Disk Management is a built-in tool for users to manage hard drives on Server 2012. Its main features are listed below:

● Connect and initialize disks.
● Create a basic, spanned, or striped partition.
● Delete volumes or partitions.
● Format a volume or partition with ExFAT, NTFS, or ReFS.
● Convert the empty basic disk to dynamic or to GPT/MBR partition style.
● Extend and shrink NTFS volumes or partitions.

All in all, it is convenient for Windows Server 2012 users to manage hard drives. Most of the operations can be finished without reboot or interruption.

How to open and use Disk Management in Windows Server 2012 

But how to use Disk Management in Windows Server 2012? First, you need to open this tool. To open Disk Management in Server 2012, here provides you three different ways.

Method 1.

Press Windows + R at the same time. Then, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter key. It will show you the Disk Management window.

Method 2.

You can also right-click the Start menu, select Computer Management program here directly, and click it. The Disk Management tool will be opened immediately.

Method 3.

you can also open the Windows File Explorer. In the following window, right-click Computer, and select Manage. It will show you a Server Manager window, click Tools -> Computer Management to open the program.

After opening Disk Management, you can start to use it to partition the hard drive for Server 2012. You can right-click on a disk or partition, and then, it will display a menu listing all options for different operations. For example, to extend partition with Disk Management:

In the following screenshot, we are going to extend C: drive with the unallocated space behind it. Right-click E: drive, select Extend Volume.

In the Extend Volume Wizard window, select the unallocated space and click Next. Then, the C: drive will be extended with the unallocated space in seconds.

Warning:
However, using Windows Server 2012 Disk Management is not always so easy. Sometimes, you will find out the option greyed out. The Extend Volume greyed out, the Shrink Volume greyed out, the convert to MBR Disk option greyed out, etc. Disk Management in Windows Server 2012 still has restrictions. It can only extend a partition when there is a contiguous unallocated space on the right side of the partition that should be extended. You can only use it to convert an empty disk to MBR disk, what worse is, Windows won’t allow you to delete any system related partitions, so you can’t convert system disk to MBR/GPT with Disk Management...

Fortunately, there is an alternative to Windows Server 2012 Disk Management, the AOMEI Partition Assistant Server, which has left all restrictions of Disk Management and provides many other excellent functions.

Windows Server 2012 DM alternative: AOMEI Partition Assistant Server

AOMEI Partition Assistant Server should be the best alternative to the Windows Disk Management. It can be used on Windows Server 2025, 2022, 2019, 2016, 2012 (R2), and Windows 11/10/8/7. Compared with Disk Management in Windows Server, AOMEI Partition Assistant Server provides more flexible and more advanced features:

✍ Resize Partition. You can use this feature to extend/shrink partitions or volumes no matter the contiguous unallocated space is on the left or right side. And it can even resize encrypted partition easily.
✍ Create/delete/format partition.
✍ Move Partition. This function is still missing in Windows Disk Management.
✍ Merge Partitions. Merge two partitions into one without losing data.
✍ Initialize Disk.
✍ Wipe Hard Drive.
✍ Convert MBR to GPT Disk/Convert GPT to MBR Disk. You can convert disk between MBR and GPT without losing data including the system disk.
✍ Create Bootable Media.
✍ Migrate OS to SSD.
...

As you can see, there are so many excellent features in AOMEI Partition Assistant Server. You can download it to replace Disk Management in Windows Server 2012.

It provides you an easy-to-use interface. For example, use AOMEI Partition Assistant Server to extend or shrink partition:

Step 1. Install the program on your Windows Server 2012 and launch it. It will show you its main interface with the basic environment of your hard disk(s). to extend or shrink a partition, here you need to right-click the partition, select Resize/Move Partition.

Step 2. Then, you can drag the slider to move and resize the partition.

Step 3. When you get the unallocated space from resizing partition, you can use the unallocated space to extend another partition or create a new partition. Here we right-click the C: drive, select Resize Partition again.

Step 4. In the window below, drag the slider to decide how much you want to extend the partition.

Step 5. Before executing the operation, you can preview all operations. If there is no problem, click Apply to submit.

Conclusion

AOMEI Partition Assistant Server is such a powerful disk partition tool for Windows Server. It should be the best alternative to Disk Management in Windows Server 2012. By the way, if you need to use this software for service providers to solve disk partition problem of their clients or install it on multiple PCs, you can consider the AOMEI Partition Assistant Technician edition or Unlimited edition based on your needs. The Technician and Unlimited edition have a helpful function, Create Portable Version, enabling you to create AOMEI Partition Assistant to a removable device.