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May 14, 2009 12:00 AM

Tool Time: Repartition Windows Servers with GParted

Create, resize, copy, and delete partitions with this free utility
Windows IT Pro
InstantDoc ID #101800
Rating: (3)

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.

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Comments
  • Prakash Sajja
    2 months ago
    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!

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