Tool Time: Repartition Windows Servers with GParted

Create, resize, copy, and delete partitions with this free utility

As many of you probably know, Symantec's Norton PartitionMagic (formerly PowerQuest's PartitionMagic) doesn't run on Windows servers. There are a few expensive commercial partitioning programs that will repartition Windows servers. However, there's also an open-source alternative: Gnome Partition Editor (GParted), which is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

You can download this free utility from SourceForge.net. The Documentation page provides links to detailed information on how to install it and use it for such tasks as creating, resizing, copying, and deleting partitions.

GParted works great with RAID and NTFS partitions. I've ran GParted on multiple Windows Server 2003 servers with RAID 1 and RAID 5 without any problems. I had one server on which I needed to run the CHKDSK /R command before GParted would run. After running this command, GParted completed successfully.

Note that because GParted is an open-source program, you use it at your own risk. Therefore, it's important that you create a good backup before you run GParted. Failure during repartitioning could cripple a server or workstation.

I have to give credit to Charles Schlue for bringing this program to my attention. It has worked great so far.

Discuss this Article 2

psajja
on Mar 22, 2012
Hi, I was searching for possibility of using GParted for Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition with RAID 5 configuration (a Domain Controller+DSN+DHCP+Symantec AV Server) to increase C:\ volume from D:\. I found your posting as successful experience. I currently have GParted version 0.9. Do I need to use the latest 0.12 or will 0.9 work fine? Since your posting is from May, 2009 and 0.9 was release sometime in 2011, I guess 0.9 should also work, right? Thank you!
cschlue
on Feb 28, 2013
Prakash, any current version of gparted will work fine, obviously make a good backup on either tape or another drive before doing the resize though.

Please or Register to post comments.

IT/Dev Connections

Las Vegas
September 30th - October 4th

Paul ThurottYou'll have the opportunity to experience:
• The Microsoft
Technology Roadmap
• Office 365 Implementation
• Hyper-V Optimizing
• Windows 8 Deployment
and much more!

Come See Paul Thurrott & Rod Trent in Person!

Early Registration Now Open

Upcoming Training

Mastering System Center 2012

During over 6 hours of training you can join John Savill from your computer as he will walk you through the key components and capabilities of System Center 2012, what’s involved in using the components, and the benefit they can bring to your environment.

Register Now

Current Issue

May 2013 - The NameTranslate object is useful when you need to translate Active Directory object names between different formats, but it's awkward to use from PowerShell. Here's a PowerShell script that eliminates the awkwardness.

CURRENT ISSUE / ARCHIVE / SUBSCRIBE

Windows Forums

Get answers to questions, share tips, and engage with the Windows Community in our Forums.