Safest way to increase the 'C' partition on primary server?

[ninjabeaver]

Hi everyone.

 

Sorry if this is the wrong section for this. I'm just wondering the safest / cheapest / easiest method to increase the root partition on the primary server here. I want to transfer 20 GB's to it from the 'D' drive which has plenty spare. Can anyone help please?

 

Many thanks,

[RobC]

I've safely used the Server version of PartitionMagic to increase the boot volume of a server before. It's called Volume Manager as opposed to Partition Magic.

[OverWorked]

This is just a suggestion, but there's no harm in trying.

 

Can you just use Ghost and copy the existing 20GB partition to a bigger drive? I've done this before with a 2000 Server C: drive with no problems.

 

I'm assuming it's IDE.

 

Use a workstation. Remove its existing drive.

Fit the old server 20GB drive and a new bigger drive. (Same or different IDE channels - it doesn't matter)

Boot from a ghost boot floppy.

Ghost will be able to copy the drive and/or individual partitions to the new drive, increasing the sizes as you want.

 

The real danger is making sure you get the old and new drives the right way round when using Ghost.

 

That's how I'd do it anyway.

[OverWorked]

Sorry, I hadn't read your question properly. You wanted to span the partition to the D: drive, increasing by 20GB.

 

If you're using MS Server 2000 or 2003, you can't span the system or boot volumes.

 

I'd still buy a new bigger drive and Ghost to that.

[Ric_]

Would it not make more sense to move 20GB of data from the system volume to drive D? - you shouldn't really have very much on drive C (20GB should be ample for this).

[OverWorked]

I'd agree with that. Windows Server 2003 with AD and a load of apps should be about 5GB tops.

[Geoff]

Yep, 20Gb should be fine for most things. I tend to split the servers I build for primary schools into 3 parts. A 20Gb system partition for Windows and then split whats left in half between kids work and software. I've only ever run out of space from making too many ghost images.

[ajbritton]

What about creating an additional partition on a spare drive and then 'mounting' it into the C: drive (a la Unix). You can do this is Disk Management.

 

1 - Right click on your additional partition and select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths'

2 - Click on Add

3 - Select 'Mount in the following Empty NTFS folder'

4 - Enter a path to an empty folder eg C:\MoreSpace (create the folder first!)

5 - Ok

 

You should now be able to save extra data into C:\MoreSpace. You could use this to relieve your C: drive space problem.

 

NB - I have never actually used this trick. I anyone knows why this is a BAD idea, please do post!

[ninjabeaver]

OK, thanks for the replies everyone.

 

I'm either reading your replies wrong or I structured my question wrongly.

 

On the Primary Server I have about 120GB on the HDD. This is split into two partitions. The 'C' dirve contains Windows 2003 Server and is an 8GB partition. The 'D' drive is the 'home' folders and some other bits.

 

I would like to increase the 'C' partition to 20GB by taking some of the 'D' partition to do it. I have removed any software that was installed on the 'C' drive to try and increase the size, but its made very little difference.

 

So, is there an easy / cheap / free / safe way of doing the above?

[russdev]

maybe have look at c drive again and see what is making c drive so big as should not be thta much and might maybe a problem if have got that amount on it.

 

russ

[Ric_]

@ninjabeaver: The method that ajbritton describes above should work but what we were getting it is that we were unsure about why so much space was required on the system drive in the first place.

[GrumbleDook]

It's quite easy to fill up to the 8GB on the system partition ... you do the original install ... then service patch it (leaving the uninstall option there) ... the patch it again ... then start adding the resource kit, the support tools ... the various add-ons to work on the machine (acrobat reader, etc) and suddenly you realise that the 8GB was actually 6GB by the time you took into account the swap, and then you remember that you also have it running as a print server and the spools are on c:/ too ... and you have a colour laser which has 600MB of RAW data spooled to it on a regular basis ...

 

And then you think ... perhaps I should have asked around before setting this flippin' box up.

 

Sound familiar to anyone?

 

I am struggling with a box with a 4GB system partition atm ... it was that way when I started and we have never had the time to rebuild it ... it runs our mail and content filtering and taking that offline is a pain ... we keep promising oursleves that we will move the services onto another box ... but now the summer is nearly over and we have a heap of work left to do.

[Ric_]

You shouldn't have your print spool on the system drive anyway and there's nothing to stop you installing the resource kit and other gubbins to a different partition. I think that it is also possible to remove the uninstall data for the service packs (although I can't think how off the top of my head).

 

The phrase "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut" seems apt for what you are trying to do. At the very least you should move that spool file (check technet).

[GrumbleDook]

All of the above has been moved onto other areas ...

 

I just thought I'd mention that sometimes it is very easy to fill up the system partition without realising ..

 

We all make mistakes ... having the above setup on an early W2K Server was one of them, and not having the chance to solve the other box is niggling pain ... I might end up giving up my workstation for a few weeks to get it sorted.

[Dos_Box]

You shouldn't have your print spool on the system drive anyway and there's nothing to stop you installing the resource kit and other gubbins to a different partition. I think that it is also possible to remove the uninstall data for the service packs (although I can't think how off the top of my head).

 

The phrase "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut" seems apt for what you are trying to do. At the very least you should move that spool file (check technet).

 

I just delete\move to a safe area the uninstall info. I've been doing it for a couple of years now and the OS has never once complained. Admittedly I've never needed to uninstall the updates\service packs.

[ajbritton]

One obvious way of saving space, especially on servers with large amounts of RAM is to move the page file off the system volume. The page file is usually at least as big as the total RAM in the system, if not more.

 

In theory, you should be able to repartition as follows;

1 - Back up the entire system (including SystemState) and verify :oops:

2 - Wipe the entire disk

3 - Create a C: partition of 20GB and install Win2K3 to C:\WIN2K3

4 - Boot into the new installation and restore the original system

5 - Modify boot.ini to allow access to both old and new systems

6 - Boot into the original system

voila!

 

I have NOT done this on a Windows 2003 system yet. Can anyone confirm or refine this method?

[tarquel]

Nice theory.

 

Would indeed be handy to know if this works. Just a shame it would put back all the junk onto the partiton.

 

A digression (start another topic if you know the ansewr please) but would be nice if there is a (virtually) fully-proof way of getting everything off a 2003 AD and then after a fresh install of 2k3 (i.e. a UA 2003 CD install with hotfixes/SPs integrated) import the settings from the old setup?

 

[sorry if that sounds confusing lol]

 

Shame PQ's (now Symantec's) Drive Image / Partition Manager isn't compatible with 2k3 It was well handy on Server NT 4

 

Regards

Nath

[E1uSiV3]

Ive found one of the biggest killers of disk space is the pagefile, i have a SQL server with 3GB of ram so the pagefile is (by default) 4.5GB in size alone!

 

After installing SP1 and some other patches space gets eaten very quickly, my SQL box has a dedicated 36GB drive for the system and a 74GB for data, and runs nicely, some might say overkill but i personally think the performance hit from running partitioned drives is too great.

 

also being a paranoid freak that i am i wouldnt want to put hte system and data on one disk, odds are only 1 disk will fail at a time so is a lot smaller task to fix, and usually if its the system drive i can cheat and relocate the disk in another box instantly to keep the ball rolling after a bit of path changing

[browolf]

you can move the spool folder:

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=123747#XSLTH4138121123120121120120

[zippy]

I've only ever run out of space from making too many ghost images.

 

You keep the images on the very same hard drive that might actually fail?

Do I read that right?

 

Z

[Geoff]

No, I keep them on a USB HDD if I can.

[Dos_Box]

Once external SATA drives become the norm then it will open up a whole new world where external drives can take up the slack on demand. Imaging is a task in which large external drives are particularly well suited.

[ChrisH]

Ive got a few USB2/SATA combo external drives. It's not true SATA as it goes to a PATA but certainly faster than the USB2 connection.

[Dos_Box]

We have just taken delivery of some new motherboards and they have true SATA backplanes connecting to the SATA controller on the motherboard. Its a pity I don't have anything to connect to them

[StewartKnight]

I've just got one large c: drive, as at my last school the technician didn't partition enough space, and we had a hell of a time!