C Drive running out of space in Windows Server 2003

by Max / Wednesday, November 9, 2016 / PUBLISHED in Help

"My C Drive is always running out of space on Windows Server 2003, it's not Dell Sever with 12GB C Drive, i gave a lot of space to that partition, but now it shows low disk space, again, why my C Drive keeps running out of space? Are there any solutions? I found no extend volume or shrink volume options in Windows Server 2003 like they're in Windows 10. I run server for small business, I partition 32GB to C Drive, which I thought might be quite enough for server system years ago. Please help,"

You're running out space on C Drive, but find no way to resize server partition in Windows 2003, disk management failed, and diskpart command line to extend server system partition requires bootable CD, so it's not an convenient method to solve C Drive running out of space problem; Server Partition Manager, Macrorit Partition Expert Server Edition can be some help on solving server disk partition problems.

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You can do the following methods to solve C Drive running out of space problem:

When you first using Server 2003, system partition is clean, but now it's running slower and slower, while you found no other downloaded files in system partition, you might have wondered why is C Drive size getting enlarged? If you did nothing to increase partition C size, it definitely is the log files' size is gaining automatically when you keep server running all the time; so open your log files, and save what means to you, delete other log records, it will surprise you.

Server system is not for home using, so unnecessary files should be downloaded to server disk, C Drive is last path to your downloads; programs that are needed for server system should also change default download path to D Drive instead of C Drive; Uninstall programs in control panel that are not often used or not a must to server; delete files or move files to other partitions in C Drive will also make system partition rich in free space.

Uninstall Program:
Start; > Control Panel; > Programs and Features; > click one program to uninstall;
Delete Files:
Windows + E to open file explorer; > double click C Drive; > find unnecessary files; > press Shift + Delete to permanently delete files instead of moving them to recycle bin.

SinceC Drive is running out of space, the simplest way to fix this is to extend C Drive, anyway, I got enough free space in other partitions, all I have to do is move them to C Drive, so I don't have to reinstall server system again and do the partition job. The theory is right, but how to achieve it when there's no extend volume in server 2003?

The worse news is that: there's no "move" command in diskpart command line either.

The good news is that:
Server partition software Macrorit Partition Expert Server Edition is here to help and you can click the above bottom to free download server partition software.

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Extend System partition on Server system

Step one: shrink large partition

Run Partition Expert, and click the large partition, D Drive for instance, Resize / Move partition on it, then drag the handle ball on the left to shrink D Drive, now you're creating unallocated space for C Drive extending, you can see unallocated space size is increasing under the resize partition column in real-time; click OK to proceed if you think it's enough space for system partition;

Step two: extend system partition

In the main interface of Partition Expert, click C Drive, and Resize/Move partition to it. Again, in the resize window, hold and drag the right handle ball to the end of partition, and unallocated space are merged into C Drive automatically in real-time, click OK and Commit in the main window, and extending operation will take effect.

Step one alternative: move free space to C Drive

Some users may already have unallocated space at the end of disk, let's say its behind E partition, I don't want to shrink D partition or E partition to create new space unallocated, I just want to take full use the unallocated space I have at the end of server disk. Still, run Partition Expert, and click E partition, drag the whole partition to the end of disk, click OK, and do the same to D Drive, and you can go to step 2 for C Drive extending.

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