Extending drives
tawnos
Member Posts: 26 ■□□□□□□□□□
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?
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?
Comments
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.
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]
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.
Read my answer - I don't think so. Remember, you still want to dual boot.
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.
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.
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!