Disk partition question: C drive is running out of space

Question: I received a retired Compaq server. It is running Windows XP pro sp3 and I am using it as my Corp. AV server for about 100 clients. The HDD is 240GB with raid 0. The disks were partitioned as c: 10GB; d: 20 GB, e: 80 GB. C=system drive, D=software (AV installed here), E=shared; printer drivers, etc. My issue is the C drive is running out of space and there is 40GB free space on E:. I was down to less than 300meg, now I'm up to 1.3gig free BUT I'd like to merge C & E so that I have more free space on C or can I redistribute the free space like 20 GB from E to C then I can have a larger C drive. Here are three issues that I mostly concerned, and I would appreciate your reply.

  • Is that possible with my scenario? (Raid)
  • Can it be done without reloading Windows?
  • If so, what software would you recommend that's reasonable ($), as with many, my budget just left the building!

Solution

Partition Wizard Server ranks Top1 in our review test among all partition server software. It works with all raid partitions, all server systems. Here are the steps to resize partition with it.

  1. Download a free trial and run it.
  2. Right click the partition which you want to change size, and go to "Resize/Move" on the show-up menu.

    3. resize partition

  3. Drag the partition rightwards to shrink partition and make some space available for redistribution

    4. shrink partition----> free space available

  4. Right click the system partition and choose Resize/Move. In the pop up window, drag the right borderline of the system partition to extend.

    5. extend c drive ---->c drive larger

Then to apply the changes, then you can make your partition larger without reloading os nor moving files.

free download Free Download Trial | Read server partition software review

 

Related information

We can tell that you do not want to do any damage to your present computer to extend the boot drive. Actually we do not recommend merging E and C drive since it would be safer to keep the system partition independent. We advice you redistribute free space from E drive to the boot partition. It is safe and no data loss. To safely move free space from one drive to another especially the boot drive, you need a third party partition software to do the trick. Let’s see your most concerned questions.

1. Is that possible with my scenario? (Raid)

As we know 99% of the partition software is hardware RAID supported. If the RAID is constructed by RAID card, then just pick up hardware RAID supported partition software to manage your partitions.

2. Can it be done without reloading Windows?

Yes, you can perform the partition software without reloading or reinstalling Windows. No data loss in the repartitioning process.

3. If so, what software would you recommend that's reasonable ($), as with many, my budget just left the building!

You are so lucky running Windows XP pro SP3. Why? Since most partition software are divided into different versions upon Windows versions with different prices. Usually it only takes dozens of dollars to resize the partition in Windows Personal Operating Systems; however it takes hundreds of dollars to pay for a Windows Server partition software.

For running Windows 2000/XP/Vista, We would like to recommend Acronis Disk Director Suite, which takes $49.95.

Recommended online tutorial: How to extend c drive with Acronis Disk Director Suite

To extend server boot drive For Windows Server 2000/2003/2008 users, we would like to recommend Partition Wizard Server

free download Free Download Trial | Read server partition software review

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