Extend boot partition in Windows Server 2012 R2
Boot partition is the drive where Operating System is located. Unlike other volumes, boot partition C is very likely running out of space. Because many files are saving to this drive continuously. When it happens, you can extend boot volume with free space in other partition. Then you can solve this problem fast and easily. Nobody likes to waste a long time to recreate partitions and restore from backup. In this article I’ll introduce how to resize/extend boot partition in Windows Server 2012 r2 without losing data.
2 ways to resize boot partition in Server 2012
To extend boot volume in Windows 2012 server, you may try native Disk Management tool or third party software. Because of many limitations, Disk Management is not the best choice. The major shortage to extend boot partition in Server 2012 Disk Management: you must delete the contiguous partition on the right in advance. In addition, if the contiguous partition is logical, Disk Management cannot extend boot partition C even after deleting. That means, this native tool is useless.
With third party software, you can extend Server 2012 boot volume without deleting any partition. Because there’s potential system and partition damage risk, you’d better back up server and run the safest tool. Better than other software, NIUBI Partition Editor has powerful Virtual Mode, 1-Second Rollback, Cancel-at-will and Hot-Clone technology to protect your system and data.
How to extend boot volume with safe tool
It is very easy to resize and extend boot partition in Windows 2012 Server. You just need to drag and drop on the disk map. Shrink a volume to release free space, and then add to the boot partition. In this way, your operating system, programs and anything else (except partition size) keep the same with before.
Steps to extend boot partition in Windows Server 2012 R2:
Step 1: Download NIUBI Partition Editor, right click D: drive (the adjacent partition) and select “Resize/Move Volume“.
Step 2: In the pop-up window, drag the left border towards right to shrink this adjacent partition and make unallocated space on the left.
Another option is entering an accurate amount in the box of “Unallocated space before”.
Click OK and back to the main window, a pending operation is added.
Step 3: Right click the boot partition C and select “Resize/Move Volume”, drag the right border towards right to combine this adjacent unallocated space.
Step 4: Click OK and back to the main window, click Apply on top left to execute, done! All operations before this step only works in virtual mode.
If there is not enough free space in the adjacent D drive, you can extend boot partition C with any nonadjacent partition on the same disk.
Follow the steps if you want to extend system reserved partition in Server 2012.
How to extend boot partition in Windows Server 2012 R2:
Besides resizing and extending boot partition in Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022/2003/2008, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many disk partition management operations.