Expand C: Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fredly
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Fredly

Ok, I already know the answer to this question, I think, but I wanted to run
it by the group.

I have an older W2K server with two hardware mirrored 12GB drives. This
mirror contains a small 4GB C: drive as well as an 8GB data partition. The
E: drive I believe. We need more space for both drives.

We just bought new 73GB drives from Dell and I am going to be able to add
plenty of usable space to create a new partition, say F:, and move all of
the data to it. Done deal.

We would like to gain more space on our C: drive as well. I don't think I
can create or use a volume set off the root drive, right? Can we use
something like partition magic to do this? I know I could backup, format
,restore, but it's a DC and it would cost more tech time than it's worth to
do that. Any options, suggestions?

Thank you in advance for your time!
 
You should probably reconfigure your drives and partitions to take advantage
of your new disks.

Setting the 12 GB drives as raid 1 mirror for the OS (c drive), and using
the larger drives as another raid set for data (e, or whatever you ahve now)
might be a reasonable configuration.

If you're interested in a tool to resize partions, and want some residual
value (live imaging, for example) have a look at Paragon Drive-Backup.
Compare the features and price with other products.

http://drive-backup.com/corporate/server/
 
wow... only $399.00? I was going to recommend Acronis
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATISWin/ but it's like $699.00;
I'll have to check out that pargagon ...

Jerz

Les Connor said:
You should probably reconfigure your drives and partitions to take
advantage of your new disks.

Setting the 12 GB drives as raid 1 mirror for the OS (c drive), and using
the larger drives as another raid set for data (e, or whatever you ahve
now) might be a reasonable configuration.

If you're interested in a tool to resize partions, and want some residual
value (live imaging, for example) have a look at Paragon Drive-Backup.
Compare the features and price with other products.

http://drive-backup.com/corporate/server/

--
Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP]
-----------------------------------------------------------
SBS Rocks !
----------------------
"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll
understand." - Confucius


You would require the server version of PM to do that.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Fredly said:
Ok, I already know the answer to this question, I think, but I wanted to run
it by the group.

I have an older W2K server with two hardware mirrored 12GB drives. This
mirror contains a small 4GB C: drive as well as an 8GB data partition. The
E: drive I believe. We need more space for both drives.

We just bought new 73GB drives from Dell and I am going to be able to add
plenty of usable space to create a new partition, say F:, and move all of
the data to it. Done deal.

We would like to gain more space on our C: drive as well. I don't think I
can create or use a volume set off the root drive, right? Can we use
something like partition magic to do this? I know I could backup, format
,restore, but it's a DC and it would cost more tech time than it's worth to
do that. Any options, suggestions?

Thank you in advance for your time!
Click to expand...

You are correct: You can't use diskpart to extend your system disk.
However, you could boot the machine with a Bart PE CD
(www.bootdisk.com) to do move your system partition to a new
disk in the following manner which is totally safe:
- Use xcopy.exe with the appropriate switches to copy the system
partition to a new disk.
- Set the new partition active.
- Run fixboot and fixmbr on the new disk while in Recovery Console.
- Test the new disk.
 
You can, of course, always use Ghost 2003, dos bootable, which will expand
partitions to the new drive. I've used it endless times on Win2k Server
(Ent/Terminal end points) with not a single problem. You could:

Ghost Partition C: to Image (whatever) D: to Image.

Restore Partition C: to drive (which currently contains both drives). Done.
Expand D: to fill the new drive.

Quick.
 
Ok. Love the Ghost idea. Can I ghost to a network store or USB drive,
install the two new drives, set up a 12 GB root partition and a 60 GB data
partition and then image the C: image to the 12GB partition? Will it
automatically fill this and format as NTFS? Do I need to format first?
What about the data drive?

Thank you in advance!
 
Using something like BartPE you can ghost to a network storage drive.. or a
USB drive, no problem. Then, after you have it ghosted to that location,
you can restore it however you like.. partion A on drive A (size irrelevent)
and so on. So yes, you can do it exactly as you have detailed; no need to
format the drives NTFS first, Ghost just swipes the FS on as it does the
copy. Same applies for your data drive ;)
 
In Tmservo <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
Using something like BartPE you can ghost to a network storage
drive.. or a USB drive, no problem. Then, after you have it ghosted
to that location, you can restore it however you like.. partion A on
drive A (size irrelevent) and so on. So yes, you can do it exactly
as you have detailed; no need to format the drives NTFS first, Ghost
just swipes the FS on as it does the copy. Same applies for your
data drive ;)
Click to expand...

One of the reasons I left Ghost2k3 was that I could not manage to do network
backups and restore from DOS. So, I'm hijacking the thread a bit - how does
one use BartPE for this??? I just spent an arm and a leg (with now abandoned
Ghost licenses if I ever dig that data out) on Acronis TrueImage. I like it
but, well, I'd like to know what I missed. I doubt that I'd ever go back and
thus ends all ties with Symantec but it would be good for my own personal
knowledge to know how one would do this with BartPE. I am not too familiar
with that application/disk but I do own the Admin Pak from Winternals and
would suspect that if it ran (and how did I overlook THAT obvious solution)
with network support with BartPE then it would with that as well. Really,
just boot with network support and then run the command to load ghost2k3?

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of
existence." - Sherlock Holmes
 
Thank you for all of the replies. I do think I will go down the Ghost /
Image path. I just got off the phone with Acronis sales rep. I'd love to
use it! $699, $849 with support! Add the cost of the drives in a raid
config and tech time, I'm a third of the way to a new server...

Ghost 2003 sounds good. Can I still buy it? Can I ghost to a network share
and back again?

BartPE: I hit the web site. It looks a little more unsupported and
undocumented than I'd like but I only glanced at it. Is this free? Any one
else recommend it?
 
In Fredly <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
Thank you for all of the replies. I do think I will go down the
Ghost / Image path. I just got off the phone with Acronis sales rep.
I'd love to use it! $699, $849 with support! Add the cost of the
drives in a raid config and tech time, I'm a third of the way to a
new server...

Ghost 2003 sounds good. Can I still buy it? Can I ghost to a
network share and back again?

BartPE: I hit the web site. It looks a little more unsupported and
undocumented than I'd like but I only glanced at it. Is this free?
Any one else recommend it?
Click to expand...

I can only answer some of that? I don't think Ghost 2003 is still something
you can buy from Symantec. They do have version 10 (I think) now which has
Network support so you'd not need BartPE I shouldn't think - I didn't like
the format, the layout really, and the process was just too bloated for my
taste. (I like simple and quick and don't mind the price so long as it does
those - if I wanted complex I'd still be using *NIX.)

As for BartPE - there's a lot of information kicking about and while it's
not really as supported as you might like you'll likely find lots of support
for it as it's widely in use. Most people end up getting something like that
(those in the IT sector) and because of licensing issues (and ease of use -
again) I opted to go with an alternate product from Winternals which did the
trick for my needs. Yes it's free. With the lack of a mOS (maintenance OS as
per a great fellow named Chris Quirk) there's more and more people looking
into BartPE for NT based system repair including those in the typical home
user/end-user category. There's been some questions about the legality of
the product BUT I can safely say that that's either been specifically turned
a blind eye towards or it is perfectly legal as I'm sure the legal
department at Microsoft is well aware of the product and it's common usage.
I suspect that if it is in violation of any terms (from EULA to DMCA) the
lack of a mOS for NT/NTFS has resulted in the product being allowed to go
unchallenged.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of
existence." - Sherlock Holmes
 
Galen said:
As for BartPE - there's a lot of information kicking about and while it's
not really as supported as you might like you'll likely find lots of support
for it as it's widely in use. Most people end up getting something like that
(those in the IT sector) and because of licensing issues (and ease of use -
again) I opted to go with an alternate product from Winternals which did the
trick for my needs. Yes it's free. With the lack of a mOS (maintenance OS as
per a great fellow named Chris Quirk) there's more and more people looking
into BartPE for NT based system repair including those in the typical home
user/end-user category. There's been some questions about the legality of
the product BUT I can safely say that that's either been specifically turned
a blind eye towards or it is perfectly legal as I'm sure the legal
department at Microsoft is well aware of the product and it's common usage.
I suspect that if it is in violation of any terms (from EULA to DMCA) the
lack of a mOS for NT/NTFS has resulted in the product being allowed to go
unchallenged.
Click to expand...

BartPE went through several versions which Microsoft forced them to pull
due to licensing issues. They had to do a lot of work to come up with a
package that Microsoft would permit.

--

-GJC [MS Windows SDK MVP]
-Software Consultant (Embedded systems and Real Time Controls)
- http://www.mvps.org/ArcaneIncantations/consulting.htm
(e-mail address removed)
 
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