phantomphan Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 When our w2k3 was set up, C drive was only given 4GB of space (it was not set up by me I hasten to add :? ) It has been full for a while, with less than 200MB free! This must be affecting the whole network I believe. What I need is a fast, reliable and cheap if not free solution. We are in the process of getting a new server, so do not want to spend money on this problem, but new server may be several months away. The drive is partioned and space could be made to increase C drive, but my understanding is that something like Partition Magic for Servers is required and that is fairly expensive. There is a 2nd hard drive, which has plenty of space. Can I ghost C drive, install it on 2nd HDD, reformat original C and give it a larger partion or even leave it where I put it and rename it C? This may be a fairly basic problem, with a fairly simple solution, but I'm not sure what that solution is! Any help gratefully accepted :salute: Phan
limbo Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 The first thing to do is check whether there are any big log files or anything like that you can get rid of onto another drive - that will buy you a bit of time. If they are significant you may be able to set whatever software it is generating them up to drop them on another drive anyway. Veritas Backup Exec is one such culprit. This could tide you over then until the new server. other options depend a little on whether you are running any sort of Raid config on your server which can make it a lot more complicated to do. Have you any idea what you are running?
ChrisH Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 You should be able to ghost it and restore it to a newly made bigger partition. You would need backups and documentation of any DHCP scopes etc just incase. i would also install server on a workstation temporarily as well to back up AD through normal replication.
monkey_boy Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 Ghost the whole drive, and when you restore the image you can set the partition sizes there. You could have it done easily in under an hour.
phantomphan Posted January 24, 2007 Author Posted January 24, 2007 Ghost the whole drive, and when you restore the image you can set the partition sizes there. You could have it done easily in under an hour. What version of Ghost do I need? Does it have to be a server version? Soz, Webman, I don't understand what you mean, how to do it, what or where the pagefile is :dontknow: Am showing my ignorance, I know, but best to be honest about it! Phan :oops:
alan-d Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 Right click on 'My Computer' Click on 'Advanced' Tab Click 'Settings' button under the Performance section Click on 'Advanced' Tab Under Virtual Memory click on the 'Change' button Select the drive you want to move the 'Page File' to. Complete the Initial and Maximum size boxes then click on 'Set' Click OK, OK and OK again. Reboot the server and check that the page file is working ok. It should be the same size as the one on your 'C' drive. Once you are happy about that then you can repeat the process but this time select the 'C' drive and click on 'no page file'. You will probably need to reboot again for it to take effect. I'm not at work at the mo so hopefully the above is correct. I've taken you through the easiest way there are other ways I believe but for you this is the simplest I can think of. *Can someone confirm the above please*
mattx Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 Before jumping on the Ghost option, [ which for me would be a last resort ] I would investigate what is causing the lack of space. Is there any software you can move first ? Temp internet files ? Temp files in general ? Printer spooler tmp files ? Logs ? Shares you can move ? Someone has mentioned the page file - that is straight forward to move and something I would do first.
CyberNerd Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 why not mount the new drive somewhere under c:\ ? eg - c:\ looks the same but c:\program files is infact the new drive. sorry I can't give specifics on how to do this on windows, but I'm sure someone else can.
phantomphan Posted January 24, 2007 Author Posted January 24, 2007 That 'moving Pagefile' thingy seems ideal - by doing this I will be giving windows the space it needs in order to function properly, but on another drive (right?) Have moved everything I can off of C drive. thanks, will try it tomorrow Phan
tosca925 Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 why not mount the new drive somewhere under c:\ ? eg - c:\ looks the same but c:\program files is in fact the new drive. We did this on a very old server we had while we were waiting a few months for the money to buy the new one. Its not an ideal situation for a servers C:drive but it will get bide you some time.
StewartKnight Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 also consider moving the print queue, and anything else that might be filling up the space.
DMcCoy Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 Could be worse, with my virtual DC I changed the amount of ram allocated from that of the previous template. It ran out of space during promotion! Took a few reboots after freeing some space for it to complete sucessfully and to demote again.
ajbritton Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 Move the ServicePackFiles folder MS KB article - Although the article states that it applies to Win2k3, it may be 2K only. Delete $NTServicePackUninstall...$ folders from C:\WINDOWS - If you do this you will not be able to unintsall service pack. Delete $NTUninstallKb....$ folders from C:\WINDOWS - If you do this you will not be able to uninstall hotfixes.
projector1 Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 well sounds familar we had this issue last year, i did not setup the server! our c drive was partitioned to 4gig. I managed to track down Acronis diskdirector suite 9 only cost us £30. If your hard drive is larger than 4 gig and you have free space on the second partition, you can with acronis create a bootable cdrom. Once you boot up with the cdrom you will get a gui in which you can select the option to resize a partiton (brings up a wizard to guide you through it) I was every so stressed out aand had all my cd roms r& backups ready just in case. I also went into work on a saturday to carry out the operation. I did well out of it and it was a major plus factor in my pay rise! (dedication, commitment and also administrator level work) Let me know if you need any further help
projector1 Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 just had a look at the c drive on the server and it is reporting 4gig free
phantomphan Posted January 25, 2007 Author Posted January 25, 2007 I managed to track down Acronis diskdirector suite 9 only cost us £30. This sounds just the thing - I have found it for £15. However, it does not say that it works on server 2003. On the Acronis site there is a server version which is $499!! 8O I presume it was w2k3 that you sucessfully used it on? Not doubting you, just making sure before purchasing Phan
projector1 Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 thats what i thought we would have to pay £300+ but the version i bought did the job. Our only dc is a 2000 server. As both use the ntfs file system it should be ok, but i will examine the manual i got with it and get back to you
projector1 Posted February 2, 2007 Posted February 2, 2007 having read the manual it does state to take full advantage disk director you should have .....os 98/me/nt/2000/xp microsoft server nt server /2000 /2000 advance server/2003 server
Guest PatBoland Posted February 2, 2007 Posted February 2, 2007 Acronis diskdirector trial version. I have just been looking through the steps in the trial version, do you think it would do the job for me? Server NT4 sp6a installed 6 years ago, upgrade a long way off, single hard drive partitioned as follows: 'C' drive - 2.99GB total with 75MB free now (has been down to zero free) 'D' drive - 31 GB total with 28.3 GB free I have moved page file, hotfix un-installs, programs etc etc to 'D' Could I run this program in simple mode to add space to 'C' from 'D'? Any advice appreciated.
bishopsgarthstockton Posted February 2, 2007 Posted February 2, 2007 can you not use dynamic disk? and extend the C drive?
Lee_K_81 Posted February 2, 2007 Posted February 2, 2007 IF i remember correctly even if you are using a dynamic disk you cannot extend the system partition/drive.
sahmeepee Posted February 2, 2007 Posted February 2, 2007 @Lee I think I read that somewhere too @cybernerd Admittedly it's getting into kludge territory, but.. add a new volume and format it backup (ntbackup/whatever) the contents of a big folder on c: onto that volume (or ideally elsewhere) rename the big folder on c: and create one with its original name, but (IMPORTANTLY) leave that empty open diskmgmt.msc right click your new volume > change drive letters and paths click add click "mount in the following empty ntfs folder" and browse for the empty folder you made on c: ok it all restore the backup into your new, empty folder Obviously take care when doing all that and choose which folder you move wisely. I'd probably do a dry run first with a dummy folder
bishopsgarthstockton Posted February 3, 2007 Posted February 3, 2007 :oops: crap yeh i didnt think that one through properly. i havent tried this before but what about if you use ghost. image the partitions seperately and then reconfigure the partitions? simple idea
superfletch Posted October 13, 2008 Posted October 13, 2008 (edited) You've already done yourself a massive favour as it's now reporting 4Gb space, but u could grab a ghost/acronis image of the thing, (obviosly test that its good on another PC), then whack in a new (big) HDD and either straigt up image it on the box concerned or stick the image on a virt box within the server concerned, then rename the existing physical server. lol - had a few beers now (dutch courage) - wouldn't really want to try that myself, but its possible. Edited October 13, 2008 by superfletch plain stupidity
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