Need some suggestions

I have a server set up from a vendor that we are having issues with. The problem is that the system volume (dynamic disk) was created as a 12GB volume! We are now down to under 1GB of space on that volume and I am unable to extend the volume using conventional means. The server has 2 physical drives with all volumes being mirrored.

My supervisor doesn't really want to spend any money on a 3rd party partitioning program if we can help it. We do have good current backups,however if for some reason something were to go wrong in an attempt to do a restore, we do not have the vendor software on site. The vendor would have to come out and reinstall their stuff.

Any suggestions or am I better off to get a partitioning program (server edition)?

Server is running Windows 2003 server Standard Edition, it is not a DC.

Thanks

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Comments

deadpool287

avoid partition magic.

sorry let me back that up.

It has large risk of deleting most of the data on that volume out of 35 ppl in my class 30 of them lost majority or all of their data.

dynamik

Are you using software or hardware RAID?

You could maybe use something like http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ but I haven't had much luck with it. I like Acronis Disk Director.

drainey

+1 for Acronis Disk Director

Megadeth4168

Software RAID.

$499 for the server version of Acronis will be a tough one to sell to my supervisor.

I'm a bit hesitant to try gparted... Maybe I'll play around with it on my lab at home tonight to test it out first.

dynamik

You could try doing something like breaking the RAID, putting the drive in another machine, and then using the $50 Home version to resize it, and then put it back in the server and rebuild the array. I don't think they'll let you install the home version on a Server OS; if they did, that would save you some steps.

Just make sure you have good backups before any drastic action

Megadeth4168

Hmmm, good idea. Worth a try anyway. $50 is something I can probably talk my supervisor into spending. Thanks for the suggestion.

shednik

http://partedmagic.com/

sprkymrk

I never had a problem with Partition magic, and used it for the same thing you are.

Failing that, and all other suggestions here, have you offloaded everything not needed on the main partition that you can? Set the page file to a static 50MB on the system drive and move the rest to a different partition. Move the print spooler off as well. Redirect any profiles/user folders to a different partition. Etc....

HeroPsycho

Faced this with a customer several months ago. gparted tends to not work with Dells, but does work with HP's and IBM servers. You cannot expand the disk if it's dynamic with something like gparted.

If it's a dynamic disk, you're gonna have a tough time.

Here's what I did:

1. Backup system via image level backup. Backup Exec System Recovery Server Edition can be used free for 30 days.
2. Use a raw boot table editor to turn off the dynamic disk setting. This may destroy the boot table of the drive, so don't do it unless you get a good backup.
http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806
3. If it works, you're done.
4. If it doesn't work, restore your image backup.

NetAdmin2436

Here's a nice little checklist of things you can typically move/delete.
http://www.lwcomputing.com/tips/static/bootdrivesize.asp

skrpune

deadpool287 wrote:

avoid partition magic.

sorry let me back that up.

It has large risk of deleting most of the data on that volume out of 35 ppl in my class 30 of them lost majority or all of their data.

agreed...it totally borked my HD when I tried to move partitions around. Of course I didn't follow my own advice & backup my data before I repartitioned, so I spent all night recovering data & reinstalling - FUN!

Megadeth4168

HeroPsycho wrote:

Faced this with a customer several months ago. gparted tends to not work with Dells, but does work with HP's and IBM servers. You cannot expand the disk if it's dynamic with something like gparted.

If it's a dynamic disk, you're gonna have a tough time.

Here's what I did:

1. Backup system via image level backup. Backup Exec System Recovery Server Edition can be used free for 30 days.
2. Use a raw boot table editor to turn off the dynamic disk setting. This may destroy the boot table of the drive, so don't do it unless you get a good backup.
http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806
3. If it works, you're done.
4. If it doesn't work, restore your image backup.

Yeah, it's the fact that it's a dynamic disk that I'm having a problem. I'll be attempting your posted solution today. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks!

Megadeth4168

Ok! So the technique to convert back to a basic disk worked just fine. I did however have a lot of issues once I was able to get back into the Windows Environment.... Thank god for UBCD4Windows. I went in there and was able to just blow away the existing partition and then run the disk imaging tool. I had setup a partition on the 2nd hard disk prior to the basic disk conversion with an image of the system partition.

So far everything seems to be running.... I'll further monitor everything to make sure all is well though.