System C drive is full in Windows Server 2012 r2

The same with other Windows operating system, Windows Server 2012 C drive is getting full after a period of time. When C drive becomes full, try to fix this issue as soon as possible. Otherwise, there is no free space to install critical Windows updates, some Windows services stop working, server stuck or even crash.

When C drive is almost full in Windows 2012 server, it changes to be red in Windows Explorer. Unlike other versions, low disk space alert is not enabled by default, so you’d better pay more attention.

C drive full

To fix Windows Server 2012 C drive full issue, there are many methods if you search by Google. In this article, I’ll introduce 2 easy and most effective methods.

  1. Clean up C drive to reclaim disk space
  2. Transfer free space to C drive from other partition

1. Clean up C drive to reclaim disk space

If your server has running for a long time, there are large amount of junk files saved in system partition C. Remove these files and you can reclaim disk space. In general, this is the first step when C drive in showing full in Windows Server 2012 (R2). To clean up C drive, you may use Windows native Disk Cleanup utility, 3rd-party software or delete files manually. I recommend using Disk Cleanup, because it is safe to delete most of junk files. If you are not familiar with Windows operating system and the type of files, do not delete manually.

To use Windows Disk Cleanup:

Different with other Windows editions, Disk Cleanup is not enabled by default in Windows Server 2012. To use it, you should enable or install it by yourself in advance.

How to fix C drive full in Windows Server 2012 r2 with Disk Cleanup:

Step 1: Click Server Manager on bottom left, click the 2nd option “Add roles and features“.

server manager

Step 2: Click Next till you see the Features.

Add roles

Step 3: Click the check-box in front of “Desktop Experience” and click Next.

Select to install

Step 4: Within several minutes, the installation complete, click Close.

Install complete

Step 5: Restart the server to finish adding features.

Rebooting

Step 6: After booting to desktop, right click C drive in Explorer and click Disk Cleanup.

disk cleanup

Step 7: In next window, select the files you want to safely delete. After the freeing up complete, you may redo step 6 to Clean up system files.

select files

After these steps, you can reclaim disk space more or less. If you got large amount of free space, congratulations! If you got little free space, or C drive was created small, move more free space to C drive.

2. Transfer free space from other partition

In most of servers, there are other partitions on system disk. When C drive is full in Windows Server 2012 (R2), you can shrink other partition to release free space and then add to C drive. If there’s no other partition on system disk, you can clone disk to a larger one and extend C drive with extra disk space.

To accomplish these tasks, NIUBI Partition Editor is the best choice. It has Virtual Mode, Cancel-at-well and 1-Second Rollback technology to protect system and data. If your partitions are damaged by unreliable software, you’ll lose data or waste a long time to restore. Better than other tools, NIUBI can revert server to original status in a flash automatically if it detects error. Thanks to its special file-moving algorithm, it is much faster no matter you shrink, move partition or clone disk partition.

Best way to fix Windows Server 2012 C drive full issue:

Step 1: Download NIUBI Partition Editor, right click the adjacent partition on the right (here is D:) and select “Resize/Move Volume“.

Drag to resize

Step 2: In the pop-up window, drag the left border rightwards or enter an amount in the box behind “Unallocated space before”.

Shrink volume

Drag to resize

Click OK and back to the main window, D drive is shrunk and Unallocated space is made on its left. A pending operation is also added on bottom left.

Unallocated space

Step 3: Right click C: drive and run “Resize/Move Volume” again, drag the right border rightwards to merge this Unallocated space.

Drag to resize

Hold unallocated space

Step 4: Click OK and back to the main window, Unallocated space is added to C drive in virtual mode, click Apply on top left to take effect, done!

Partition resized

How to add more free space to C drive:

When system partition C: drive is getting full in Windows Server 2012 and r2, clean up C drive to reclaim disk space. And then run NIUBI Partition Editor move free space to C drive or clone disk to a larger one. Besides shrinking, extending partition and clone disk partition, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other operations.

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