Extending a disk partition

[ubertech]

Need some opinions here...
I have a server that was running a RAID1 with 2 18GB HD's installed. It started running low on space so I decided to upgrade the server with 2 new 36GB HD's. To do this I swapped 1 of the 18GB HD's with one of the 36GB HD's and let the RAID rebuild then did a full backup. Next I swapped out the other 18GB HD with the other 36GB HD and let the RAID rebuild and then did a full backup. All went well but when I go into Disk Management on the server it shows a 32MB FAT partition and a 16GB (C then a 16GB Unallocated space all on the same Basic Disk.

How can I extend that 16GB's of unallocated space? I was told that the 32MB FAT partition is for some Compaq safe boot partition that is needed on most of the Compaq DL series servers...

Any suggestions?

 

[Jq4Yahweh]

You need to setup a temp machine (preferably running server2k) to fix your issue. Disconnect your secondary drive from the mirror, leaving the primary alone at this time. Hook it up on the temp machine.

You will have to change drive ID's in order for this to work properly.

Once you have the secondary drive connected, use disk manager to break and recreate the partition. Make sure to leave yourself about 50Mb of non partitioned space on the drive.

Format the drive with NTFS. Shut down the system and connect the Primary drive from your existing Server.

Make sure to change the ID of the drive so it won't conflict with the temp machines primary drive.

Once the temp machine is re-booted, use disk manager to locate the 2 drives and their appropriate drive letters.

Use windows explorer to drag and drop all the data from your server’s primary drive to your newly re-partitioned secondary drive. Don’t try and copy the SYSVOL, RECYCLER, or the pagefile.sys. They will only give you a file in use error. Make sure you COPY and not move the data. If the Secondary drive doesn't boot for you, you want to be able to roll back to your current configuration.

After the data has completely copied over, you’ll need to use disk manager and set your newly re-partitioned drive (that now has all the data on it) as “Active”.

Shut the Temp Machine down, disconnect the Secondary drive that you just set as “Active” and connect it back into your server. Change the drive ID to 0, or whatever your original drive ID was set to. The system won’t boot if you don’t do this!!!

Boot the server and verify that everything is running properly. The system may want you to restart during your initial boot.

After verification that the system is working fine, connect your original primary drive back into your server, this time as a secondary drive. ID1 or whatever your original slave settings were.

Then make both drives dynamic and mirror them. You should be fine from there. Hope this helps.

 

[NortonES2]

Alternatively you could use a 3rd party product like partition magic or volume manager to extend the partition.

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