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I have made a mistake in designing my partitions for a home server. I have windows server 2008 R2 installed on a 40 Gb partition.

  • C:\Windows is using 25 Gb
  • C:\Users is using 2 Gb
  • both C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files (x86) are using 5 Gb together
  • the rest is using 120 Mb

I only have 6 Gb left!!! I cannot extend this partition without deleting the one sequentially after this one, but I have many applications and server components installed there.

After relocating the shared and user directories to another partition, I will save 2 Gb which is not enough.

What is the best approach to solve this problem?

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Backup everything, rebuild your partitions, and restore. Or pay for a commercial partition manager. Or try your luck with a free bootable Linux distro like gparted. I've used it, it worked fine for me; but I also didn't care if I lost the data in that case, it was just to save me the time and trouble.

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  • I agree that if I copy everything from H:\ somewhere else in the mean time, when I copy the files back after I just have to make sure that the path is the same (H:) and everything will work again.
    – Jean-François Beaulieu
    Aug 9, 2011 at 14:33
  • +1 for gparted. There's a risk of data loss whenever you play with partitions (have a backup if it's important) but gparted has manipulated partitions for me before without losing data. Backup and try a bootable Linux disk with gparted to move partitions around then extend them. Otherwise invest in a good external disk to copy everything over and reformat and try a restore.
    – Bart Silverstrim
    Aug 9, 2011 at 14:44
  • No need for aditionnal software: all I did was copy everything in the neighbooring partition H:\ to I:\, delete the H:\ partition then extend the C:\ partition using the Disk Management console. After that I can simply rename I:\ to H:\ and have the same content as before.
    – Jean-François Beaulieu
    Aug 9, 2011 at 14:53
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mfinni said it best for process. There are many backup/restore programs out there, but I have used the free/trial Acronis imaging/backup software to do similar backup/restores. It can all be done from a bootable CD, both backup and restore. And as always with backups, integrity check, integrity check, integrity check. :)

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  • If I backup my files, change the partition table, then restore the files, will there be any problems?
    – Jean-François Beaulieu
    Aug 9, 2011 at 14:37
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How large is your HDD where this system installed? Do you have any other partitions on this HDD with some free space?

Try to rebuild partitions on your HDD (backup data/recreate partitions/restore data or just use partitioning tools like gparted or commertial Acronis software to extend/move your partitions to obtain more space for system partition)

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  • 2 Tb, so size is not the issue, only partitioning and resizing.
    – Jean-François Beaulieu
    Aug 9, 2011 at 14:37
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    So you can use any partitioning tool to move the partition 'sequentially after this one' and then extend your system partition using free space arranged 'between partitions' after this operation.
    – Sergey
    Aug 9, 2011 at 14:40
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This is what Microsoft calls the solution for the "DLL-Hell". There is one Folder under C:\Windows\ (don't know the exact name; WOW64?) where Windows stores all DLLs from all programs installed on the system. It even keeps track of changes in the DLLs. So an update of a program duplicates the required space of DLLs from that program.

And there is no official way to get rid of that mess. Not as far as I know. But maybe a skilled Microsoft Administrator or Microsoft can give you better information about that.

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  • That's what I keep thinking about how programs like Adobe Reader that updates itself all the time just keep accumulating space in C:\Windows even if it's installed somewhere else. I suppose that it's recommended to uninstall old versions after a while...
    – Jean-François Beaulieu
    Aug 9, 2011 at 15:02

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