Removing Partitions in 2000 Server. Possible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sam Manzella
  • Start date Start date
S

Sam Manzella

Hi, Is there a "trick" or a third party software that will open up a
partition on hard drive? I have windows 2000 Server installed on an 18GB
SCSI hard drive, but only 6 was allocated to the OS at first build. Patches
etc, are leaving me without space on the C:\, therefore I'm trying to
recover the remainder of the space without having to rebuild from scratch.
Is that possible?

Any help on this is greatly appreciated. The OS is Windows 2000 Server.

Sam
 
Sam

Do you have free space after your system/boot partition? In that case, you
might be able to use diskpart.exe from "safe mode with command prompt" to
expand your system partition to fill the free area.

This is normally not recommended on the system partition, but usually works
anyway. Also see this MS Knowledge Base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=325590

Another option is to perform an upgrade installation, as this article
describes:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=289876

A third option is to use Powerquest Volume Manager in order to reduce the
size of other partitions, if this is needed, and then use it to expand the
system partition.

Best regards

Bjorn
 
Thank you, I think this is what I need. The remainder of the hard drive is
all free space, labeled as "Unallocated" from within Disk Manager.

I was wondering if the following would be an option, just because I would
like to possibly replace the 16GB hard drive: (This one is getting real
noisy, and I wonder how long it's going to last)... Anyway, will this work:

1) I have the 16GB Hard Drive with the current 6GB OS Partition mentioned
below.

2) I would buy two new 36GB Drives.

3) Install one 36GB drive, and mirror the C:\ partion to lets say, the
entire partition disk.

4) Once the mirror is complete, I would remove the old 16GB original Hard
Drive, and Install the 2nd 36GB Disk

5) Mirror the 2nd 36GB disk with the 1st 36GB disk installed.

Can this be done (assuming all dynamic disk) on the boot disk? If so, is
there anything I should be aware of?

Thanks again. I'm just trying to see what my best options are.

Sam
 
I've never used Ghost. Can I clone a C:\ drive of lets say 6GB (a partition
of Disk0) to a new 36GB drive (Entire Disk1 without the 6GB partition)?

From what I've been reading, it sounds like I can do a disk-to-disk clone,
but it sounds like it would make an exact clone of Disk0 to Disk1 (including
the partition that I'm trying to get rid of).

Is this right? Please help.

Thanks,
Sam
 
Sam

Your plan to use a mirror will fail in step 3, as a mirror would create a
partition of the same size. Another problem would be that the disk would be
dynamic, and there are - as far as I am aware - no built in or third party
solutions to extend a partition on a dynamic disk.

Norton Ghost, as Jetro suggested, would probably be a solution, though.

Best regards

Bjorn
 
Thanks Bjorn. I went out and bought Ghost 2003 during my lunch break. I
think that's how I'm going to resolve this problem. I've never used Ghost,
so I'm not sure of what I can and cannot do with it. I'm doing the research
as we speak.

Thanks for all your help.
( Advice on Ghost is of course is also welcome ;o) )

Sam
 
Interactive Ghost always shows the destination drive map and you can easily
resize it. If you would move data and delete 12GB partition from the source
drive, then you could clone disk-to-disk w/o wasted space as you've read.
Partition-to-partition operation is also available, but sometimes Ghost
doesn't mark a destination partition as active.
 
Thank you Jetro. I printed this out, and will have it right beside me when I
do the cloning.

I think "clone disk-to-disk w/o wasted space as you've read" is what I may
do.

Thanks again for you help.
 
Jetro... I have one more question, so I'm hoping you are still around.

I want to do the disk-to-disk w/o wasted space, however, the disk I plan on
cloning (the one with the 6GB C:\), also has some sort of DELL utility
partition. It's a 32MB FAT volume.

So basically on Disk0, I have three sections:

32MB FAT (Utilitie?)
6GB C:\ Drive
~10GB Unallocated Space

If I do a disk-to-disk w/o wasted space on a 36GB drive, what will happen to
the 32MB FAT partition. I really don't want that one to expand, but just the
C:\ partition.

What is your opinion on this?

Thank again,
Sam
 
First, I'd like to clear the words 'wasted space' :) When you clone
Disk-to-Disk and do not want to clone some of the partitions, the only way
to do it is to reduce its size to the limit permitted by Ghost. On practice
this could be ~7MB, but then you have to delete/resize partition/disk using
Volume Manager or Partition Magic, if you're a perfectionist, and the bad
things could happen during the resize.
Another approach is cloning a Partition-to-Image when you select multiple
partitions on the source disk, and that approach could serve you better,
because you have to clone the Dell sysconfig utility partition unless you're
a masochist and like the diskettes. Indeed, it involves two clones - to and
from Image on interim disk.
 
Back
Top