timbo343 Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 One of my servers has got to a point where it needs it C: extending - 2Gb left and ive got a load of windows updates to do. It has a D: which is set at 292Gb and this has about 48Gb spare and these are on DISK 0 configured in a RAID 5. I thought i could shrink D: and then expand C: but after testing this on a test server this isn't the case, so i was wondering if anyone knew how to get round this.. would Gparted sort this out?
PotNoodleTech Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 If it's 2008 or above you can use Diskpart If it's 2003 you can't expand the C drive with Diskpart, you'll have to use third party tools like partitionmagic or the like.
Oaktech Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 @AButters is right, we use easeus diskmanager server edition because it's cheap!
timbo343 Posted February 7, 2014 Author Posted February 7, 2014 Sorry forgot to mention, its running 2008R2. When i run diskpart i get "There is not enough free space on specified disk(s) to extend the volume." Would the machine require a reboot before i can extend the volume?
SHimmer45 Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 from memory you need to have unallocated space on the volume you want to shrink to give more space to one you want to expand. so you will need to shrink D: and then expand C: onto the freed space
timbo343 Posted February 7, 2014 Author Posted February 7, 2014 This is from a test server which which i have set up... Ive got some unallocated space but cannot extend C. Its like i need to move the unallocated space so it sits next to C: but i cant.
PotNoodleTech Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 You need to use the command pompt and run "diskpart" then type "list volume" that will give you a list of volumes and the drive letter then type "select volume #" where # is the volume number, e.g on mine C drive is volume 2, so I would type "select volume 2" then type "extend" and it will automatically add the 9.77GB you have spare onto your C drive. That should be it!
ChrisH Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 I've done this this a few times with GParted when I have ended up with the Bitlocker partition. I simply moved the partition so the free space was contiguous with the partition to be extended; however this was with VMWare machines but the same principles should apply.
3s-gtech Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 I've done it on a DC a couple of times using Acronis Disk Director, or Partition Magic. Key was, it was done outside of Windows. Worked nicely though.
timbo343 Posted February 7, 2014 Author Posted February 7, 2014 You need to use the command pompt and run "diskpart" then type "list volume" that will give you a list of volumes and the drive letter then type "select volume #" where # is the volume number, e.g on mine C drive is volume 2, so I would type "select volume 2" then type "extend" and it will automatically add the 9.77GB you have spare onto your C drive. That should be it! I tried this before i posted the screen shot - thats when i was getting the error message. Oh well, looks like i will have to use Gparted and hope for the best. Trouble is this server im trying to increase is one of the DNS/DC servers. Ill just have to make sure that any FSMO roles on it are removed and hope for the best... eeek!
tmcd35 Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 The reason you can't is because the unallocated space is not continuous with the C: drive, it's split after the D: partition. If you delete D (I'm guessing you don't want to do that) then you'll be able to expand the partition in either the GUI or with diskpart. Not sure if some clever partitioning tools (or a Linux boot disc) could move the D: partition to the end of the drive so the available space is in the right place.
timbo343 Posted February 7, 2014 Author Posted February 7, 2014 gparted will do this but dont want to risk it. Im going to see if school will let me buy a copy of partition magic otherwise it looks like it could be a PITA.
featured_spectre Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 Do you have the ability to clone the drive to a bigger one then turn the machine off at the end of the day, put the new HDD in and away you go? I've done that before to give myself an extra 500GB which did the trick at the time.
tmcd35 Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 Do you have the ability to clone the drive to a bigger one then turn the machine off at the end of the day, put the new HDD in and away you go? I've done that before to give myself an extra 500GB which did the trick at the time. Not a bad suggestion. What are the contents of the other partition? If you stuck a second drive into the server can you Robocopy the contents to a new drive, freeing up the space after the C partition and then allowing you to expand?
timbo343 Posted February 7, 2014 Author Posted February 7, 2014 Do you have the ability to clone the drive to a bigger one then turn the machine off at the end of the day, put the new HDD in and away you go? I've done that before to give myself an extra 500GB which did the trick at the time. I wish it was as simple as that but when the server in question is a HP DL380 G5 with x amount of discs in a RAID 5 configuration, i dont think that can be done can it?
john Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 GPartedit will be fine and work, I've done it on Sharepoint, SQL and Exchange boxes before (when badly setup by others!) and works no issues. As you say ensure you have backups / other ones to take over just in-case but you should be fine to adjust with it, it will disk check all drives on the next start up, find errors and reboot usually but with no ill effects after that I have had before.
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