I would like to extend the system partition C: (12GB C:, 200GB D: ) on my 2 year old Dell Server PE1800 (Windows 2003 x64 std) with 4 SATA drives on a CERC SATA RAID controller 1.5/6ch (setup as RAID 5, type basic). The system partition is running out of space as it fills with Windows updates. Already tried Diskpart - doesn't work with system partition. Partition Magic 8.0 doesn't work in 2003 server…
I am convinced that great majority of Windows Server 2003 system administrators have encountered the similar problem that system partition is running out of disk space. However, it is not easy for them to fix the problem because of some limitations. Unlike Windows 7/Vista/2008, the built-in Disk Management couldn't support "Extend Volume" and "Shrink Volume" to resize Windows 2003 partition. In such case, the only way is to backup data, format hard drive, reinstall Windows Server 2003, repartition hard drive and restore data. And Diskpart command line can only extend a data volume (not system, boot, page files) when there is contiguous unallocated space. Therefore, it is a wise and good choice to extend system partition for Windows Server 2003 with the benefit of partition magic software, the problem is, many tools I can find on the internet are very expensive, I need a cheap one or a freeware cause I will only use it for one time!! Thank you in advance !!