How to Extend Volume in Windows Server 2022/2025

by John, Updated on: August 30, 2024

Many people want to extend partition in Windows 2022 server after running it for a period of time. C drive and other partitions for database, backup, etc are getting full. It can't be better if you can extend partition without wasting a long time to recreate partitions and restore everything from backup. To extend volume in Windows Server 2022, you may try either Windows native tools or third party software. Because of some limitations, the native tools only work under certain condition. The best choice is running safe partition software to extend Server 2022 volume. This article introduces 3 wasy to extend partition in Windows Server 2022/2025 without losing data.

Extend Server 2022 partition

1. Extend volume in Windows Server 2022 with diskpart cmd

DiskPart is a Windows built-in tool running from command prompt. You can do many disk and partition management operations such as create, delete, format, convert, shrink, extend volume, etc.

Press Windows and R on keyboard to open  Run, type diskpart and press Enter, then diskpart command prompt window will be opened. Input "?" and press Enter, you'll see all available commands.

How to extend partition C in Server 2022/2025 with diskpart command:

  1. Follow method above to open diskpart command window.
  2. Type list volume and press Enter, then all partitions will be shown in a list.
  3. Type select volume D and press Enter. (D is the number or drive letter of adjacent partition on the right.)
  4. Type delete volume and press Enter.
  5. Type select volume C and press Enter.
  6. Type extend and press Enter.

Diskpart extend

There's "shrink" command, why not shrinking the contiguous D drive to extend partition C? When shrinking D or any other partition with diskpart command, unallocated space is made on the right side. Therefore, this unallocated space is always nonadjacent to C drive. Diskpart "extend" command can only extend NTFS partition when there is adjacent  unallocated space on the right. If you shrink partition to extend C drive via diskpart, you'll get error message "There is not enough usable free space on the specified disk(s) to extend the volume".

Diskpart extend failed

2. Extend partition in Server 2022/2025 with Disk Management

Disk Management is another Windows native tool, it has graphic interface, so it's easier to use to many people. However, the same with diskpart command, Disk Management can only extend NTFS with right adjacent unallocated space. That means, you must delete D drive before extending C. In addition, to extend partition in Windows Server 2022/2025 with Disk Management, the partitions to be deleted and extended must be the same  primary or logical partitions. Otherwise, "Extend Volume" option is grayed out even after deleting partition.

In my test server, I shrunk D: drive and got 30GB unallocated space. As you see in the screenshot, "Extend Volume" greyed out for both C and E drive, because this unallocated space is nonadjacent to C drive and is on the left of Edrive.

Disk Management

If D drive is primary in your server and you can delete it, follow the steps below. Otherwise, jump to the next section.

How to extend volume C in Windows Server 2022/2025 without software:

  1. Press Windows + X on the keyboard and click Disk Management in the list.
  2. Right click the adjacent partition D and select "Delete Volume".
  3. Right click C drive and select "Extend Volume". Follow up the next steps in pop-up "Extend Volume Wizard" window.

If your disk partition configuration doesn't meet the requirements or if you don't want to delete any partition, run safe disk partition software.

3. Extend Server 2022 volume with safe partition software

There are many partition software for Server 2022, but few are safe enough. Better than other tools, NIUBI Partition Editor has powerful Virtual Mode, Cancel-at-will, 1-Second Rollback and Hot-Clone technology to protect server system and data.

Download this program and you'll see the main window with disk partition layout and other information.

NIUBI Partition Editor

How to extend volume in Windows Server 2022 without losing data:

  1. Right click the adjacent D drive and select "Resize/Move Volume" in NIUBI Partition Editor, drag the left border towards right in the pop-up window. Then D drive will be shrunk and Unallocated space will be made on the left.
  2. Right click C: drive and select "Resize/Move Volume", drag right border towards right to combine this Unallocated space.
  3. Click "Apply" on top left of the main window to take effect.

Follow the steps in the video to extend C drive in Windows 2022 server.

  • If you want to shrink D to extend E drive, drag right border towards left in step 1 and drag left border towards left in step 2.
  • If you want to shrink E to extend C drive, there's an additional step to move partition D to the right and make Unallocated space next to C drive.
  • If you want to extend erver 2022 partition in VMware/Hyper-V/RAID, follow the same steps above.

Besides shrinking and extending volume in Windows Server 2022/2025 and previous Server 2019/2016/2012/2008/2003, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other disk partition management operations such as move, merge, convert, clone, defrag, hide, wipe partition and scan bad sectors.

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