Extending drives

tawnos

I've been working through the transcender tests after doing the measerup tests for 70-290. I've come across this issue a couple of times and I think the questions are simply wrong (again). For the transcender test I have, it asks a question that looks like (paraphrasing so that its not infringing upon copyrights)

Server with 1 basic disk that dual boots between w2k3 and Windows XP. Contains 5 volumes:
C - System volume
D - Boot volume for w2k3
E - Boot volume for XP Pro
F - Application data
G - Free

The goal is to increase the available space on drive F. There are 4 wrong answers and then:

-Delete drive G, and then extend drive F
-Mount drive G to an empty folder on F

Reading the question, i know that either of these will work but make the assumption that the first is the better choice. Instead, the answer says "Basic volumes cannot be extended; only dynamic volumes can". Unless i'm missing something, this is just plain wrong since volumes on basic disks can be extended into contiguous free space albeit with the requirement of using diskpart instead of the disk management console. I've tried this both with primary partitions and logical drives in an extended partition and both work. The space does have to be contiguous, but the question implies that F and G are contiguous and at any rate the answer unequivocally states that basic volumes can't be extended. So is there something i'm missing with this question or have they just gotten it wrong? Normally, i would write it off as an incorrect question, but that seems odd considering how much the transcender tests cost and I remember seeing the same issue on one of the measureup test questions, though i cannot find it now.

Is this just a question transcender got wrong?

royal

Server with 1 basic disk that dual boots between w2k3 and Windows XP. Contains 5 volumes:

Basic disks can only have partitions. Dynamic disks are what contain volumes. You can only extend Dynamic disks, not basic disks.

Also, you cannot extend a volume that contains the boot files are system files. You also cannot extend a volume if it is not NTFS.

The answer they give is correct. You want a larger F and G isn't doing anything. Since you cannot extend the volume that has OS files are System files, C, D, and E are out of the question. Since F drive contains neither OS files nor the System files, F can successfully be extended if it was a dynamic disk. Since G is sitting there and doing nothing, you might as well delete the G volume and extend F. With Basic disks, you can mount G into F which will make the G drive appear as a folder in the F drive which would therefore increase the size of F. You could essentially make the mounted folder called Marketing, and create another regular folder called Sales. Marketing would store data on the Marketing mounted drive (which closely resembles a folder) and the Sales would store their data in their own Sales folder.

tawnos

The answer they give is correct. You want a larger F and G isn't doing anything.

The answer they gave was ONLY the answer regarding mounting G into F. As i said, the answer i would have chosen would be to delete G and extend F into G's former space. Their answer to the question explicity stated (and here i do quote them but i don't think its a copyright problem) "Basic volumes cannot be extended; only dynamic volumes can" as a reason why the answer about extending F into G was wrong. Also, if there's intended to be a direct distinction between basic volumes and disks the wording is directly quoted from the transcender tests...they used the phrase "basic volume"; is this also an error, or just a bit of loose wording?

Basically, i'm not sure what to do if this question comes up again in the same format. If given the choice between "Extend F into G" OR "Mount G into an empty folder in F" (and it was a single multiple choice answer, not multiple select) which one should i choose? Or can i just assume that transcender has a wrong question and this won't be an issue on the real test since hopefully they won't be making a question under the assumption that, as transcender's question solution said, "Basic volumes cannot be extended"?[/quote]

sprkymrk

If you did delete G to extend F, only the OS that you did that from would be aware of the change, and you would render the other OS unbootable, as disk's partition table information (disk sectors and such) would have been rewritten in the MBR.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, but memory recalls that the question also stated you converted the basic disk to dynamic as the first step, and asked what you should do next. With that in mind, you can't use diskpart.exe to extend a simple volume on a Dynamic disk that was originally created on a Basic disk in W2K and WXP.

royal

Sorry, I forgot to mention that you can only extend dynamic disks and because it is a basic disk, you'd have to use the mounting method. If you converted it to a dynamic disk, you can use either method.

sprkymrk

royal wrote:

Sorry, I forgot to mention that you can only extend dynamic disks and because it is a basic disk, you'd have to use the mounting method. If you converted it to a dynamic disk, you can use either method.

Read my answer - I don't think so. Remember, you still want to dual boot.

royal

Sorry, didn't read your answer before my reply. I was in the middle of replying when you replied with your answer. I think you're right. It's because the OS you do it on will contain the updated Logical Disk Manager database. Now when you boot into the other OS, you'll have issues. I wonder if there's a way around it. I'll try doing some research.

tawnos

How strict are the rules here on posting questions from something like transcender for review? I had hoped to be able to paraphrase it but its proving difficult.

Transcender's answer to the question has nothing to do with any issues of dual booting though (its used in the explanation only to rule out the other incorrect answers). I'd have to try it to see if it doesn't work and that seems like a lot of bother. Transcender's answer, however, explicitly states that basic volumes can't be extended rather than extension would cause issues with both OS's being able to access the newly extended volume.

sprkymrk

tawnos wrote:

How strict are the rules here on posting questions from something like transcender for review? I had hoped to be able to paraphrase it but its proving difficult.

In this case I don't mind if you post the question/answer if you do it as a quote=transcender. It would be a copyright problem if you posted several questions, but posting one with credit is ok on an infrequent and incidental basis (correct me if I'm wrong Johan). I wouldn't want to make a habit of it, or set a precedence.

tawnos wrote:

Transcender's answer to the question has nothing to do with any issues of dual booting though (its used in the explanation only to rule out the other incorrect answers). I'd have to try it to see if it doesn't work and that seems like a lot of bother. Transcender's answer, however, explicitly states that basic volumes can't be extended rather than extension would cause issues with both OS's being able to access the newly extended volume.

If the dual booting explanation rules out incorrect answers, including the one you thought was correct, then the outcome was still the same. In other words, even if they are wrong about extending simple volumes, you still don't want to break a dual-boot setup with one of the choices given. So by process of elimination you should mount the drive to an empty folder.

I know their explanation is what's bothering you though. Go ahead and post it and we'll see if we can decipher their thinking.

tawnos

You are your company's network administrator. A computer named DualSrv on your corporate network has one hard disk, which is configured as a basic disk. The disk hosts five volumes, as presented in the following table:

Volume Drive Letter - Contents
C - System Volume
D - Boot Volume for w2k3 server
E - Boot Volume for xp Pro
F - Application/User data
G - Free

All volumes are formatted with NTFS. DualSrv is configured to dual-boot between Windows server 2003 and Windows XP Professional. Drive F is reaching its capacity and you need to add more space to it. The application that stores its data on drive F cannot be reconfigured to use free space on another volume. You must ensure that there is enough space on drive F and that it is accessible from both operating systems on DualSrv.

a - Extend drive F to include drive G
b - Mount drive G to an empty folder in drive F
c - Delete drive G, and then extend drive F
d - Convert the disk to a dynamic disk, and then extend drive F to include drive G
e - Convert the disk to a dynamic disk, delete drive G, and then extend drive F

Explanation: (Answer is listed as b)
...
Basic volumes cannot be extended; only dynamic volumes can. However, you should not convert the basic disk in this scenario to a dynamic disk because the scenario requires that the existing dual-booting capacity of the computer be preserved.
...

sprkymrk

Okay, the answer they gave is still correct. Their explanation is half-correct. As you stated, basic disk volumes CAN be extended (with some caveats such as the free space must be contiguous, and you have to use diskpart), but even still the data would NOT be accessable from both Operating Systems on DualSrv since in all likelyhood you would not be able to boot one of the OS's by deleting G and extending F.

However, since I suspect your whole point was that basic disk volumes can be extended, then yes, you are correct and Transcender's explanation is wrong on that part.

royal

Well, I've been reading over the chapter where they talk about extending drives, and it shows how much I've forgotten. Mark is correct on all accounts. After reading, I indeed see that you can use both the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) gu as well as diskpart.exe to extend dynamic volumes that are formatted in NTFS which do not hold system or boot files. I also see that I was incorrect regarding not being able to extend basic disks. As Mark stated, you can use diskpart.exe to extend partitions, but cannot use the LDM gui. One thing I noticed that differentiates extending between basic disks and dynamic disks, is that if you are extending a dynamic volume, you are allowed to extend a simple volume onto another disk, which results in a spanned volume. With basic disks, you are not allowed to extend a partition onto another disk. You are restricted to extending a partition only on the same disk that is either unallocated, unformatted, or formatted with NTFS.

I'm glad this thread was created, it helped me go back and re-read quite a bit of stuff that clearly had become cloudy in my mind. Thanks!