Windows NT Server OS Partition too small

[stewajl]

I have a Windows NT 4.0 Server that has two 4 gig hard drives and one 9 gig hard drive.

The OS is loaded onto 800 meg of one of the 4 gig hard drives and then mirrored to the other 4 gig hard drives.

The remainder of the 4 gig's are used for data and well as the 9 gig.

My situation is that the 800 meg parition that the OS sits on is too small to install service packs. How can I use some of the 9 gig to increase the OS parition without reinstalling the OS? I have heard that partition magic can do this for workstations, but can it do it for severs?

 

[cmptrnerd]

Yes, but server is costly Mark
mark@acsconsult.com

 

[Jpoandl]

Yeah, you have to go third party on this one.

Simple Partition Magic will not work on a server with NTFS formatting. I would check out a product called Server Magic. I have used this in the past and it works great.

ACtually from looking at the PowerQuest homepage, Server Magic is no longer offered. You now need to buy Volume Manager:

http://www.powerquest.com/volumemanager/

Hope this helps... Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2000

 

[stewajl]

I checked out the volumemanager from PowerQuest.
Isn't there something that costs less than $995.00?

Also, I am not sure the partition with the OS is formatted
in NTFS. I think the partition with the data is.

 

[Jpoandl]

The other thing you could do...is create a tape backup of your system. Blow out your configuration....reload the OS and partition it they way your want. Now restore your OS and data. You have a few eventviewer messages pop up after doing this. You will be able to resolve these..

The key is to get a good backup of you system first. Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2000

 

[stewajl]

Initially, I thought reloading the OS was a bit risky for this server and wanted to find an alternative solution.

If I have a good backup, could I delete the data partitioon and use Disk Manager to increase the size of the OS partition?

 

[Jpoandl]

I guess this what your have:

4GB Drive (OS MIRRORED)
C:\ OS 800MB
D:\ Data partition 3200MB

Then you also have a 9GB drive holding data

You want to create more space on C: and don't want to buy software to do it. Therefore, I think you have to clean out OS, format the 4GB drive, reload the OS, then restore from Tape backup.

This is pretty tricky stuff. You really have to be careful. I would defintatly use proper server backup software to attempt this...like ARCSERVE or BackupExec (Reason, you will may run into trying to restore over OPEN files..NTBACKUP may have trouble with this. Not too sure...never tried using NTBACKUP on a production server.)

Anyway, I think you should try something like this:

- Break all OS Mirrors (If using Raid, you don't have to do this.)
- Create local ADMIN account as back door...just in case.
- Backup your system.
- Verify that the backup is good
- Format the c:\ 4GB drive
- Reload the Windows NT OS (Make sure you partition the drive better this time....at least 2GB;s for the OS.)
- Service pack the machine
- Load your Backup Software
- Merge the backup tape
- Restore the OS from backup tape. (In ARCSERVE, you have to make a registry edit so that ACTIVE files can be restored.) Also, you may get application errors after the OS comes back up. This is because your D:\ data is still missing...don't worry, youll get this back next.
- After the OS is back, restore your D:\ drive
- At this point, your system should look good.
- Re-mirror your drives

That should be about it...

The easy way out might be for you to find some more free space on your c:\ drive. Search for *.dmp, *.tmp. *.mp3, *.temp...etc. And delete these files....many times the mememory.dmp file is on systems. This file is created anytime the system blue screens. In the default config, this file will be located on your C:\ drive and be very big. You could also temporarily more or reduce the size of your PAGEFILE to gain extra disk space on C:\. Also, look for any SERVICE PACK updates...you probably don't need these any more....delete them.

---hope this helps..
-

Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2000

 

[stewajl]

Does anyone have a used version of Server Magic?

 

[yizhar]

HI!

Just to help you get some space on the server before you change the C size -
Go to System properties and change the page file size and location to a different drive.
Also disable the MEMORY.DMP file.

Bye
Yizhar Hurwitz

http://come.to/yizhar

http://teachers.sivan.co.il/yizhar