Extending a partition when adding an additional drive

[Allison]

I have never been able to get a good answer that solves my current problem.
I have several Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 servers. They all have RAID 5
configurations and are running 'basic' (not dynamic) disks. Whenever I add
an additional drive for extra storage space, I have used Powerquest's
ServerMagic in order to extend the partition. I have found a better way to
do that on my clustered 2000 advanced servers by using a utility from the
Resource Kit called 'diskpart.exe'. It works very well and is fast, unlike
ServerMagic. I have tried this utility on my 2003 box and it has not
worked. I haven't tried it on a non-clustered 2000 box yet. I'm afraid
that it will not work. Is there a way to do these that works like the
'diskpart.exe' utility? I know that some of you may say to use dynamic
disks, but I have run into trouble using it when I have extended partitions
twice. How weird is that.

Please help,

Thanks

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Allison.

I don't know anything about servers, or about dynamic disks, but I have used
DiskPart a couple of times on the Pro versions of Win2K and WinXP. (Each
time, I messed up and extended the volume bigger than I intended, but it
worked out OK.)

There are at least two "DiskPart.exes" from MS: The limited one that is a
part of the Recovery Console, and the much more capable one (which can use
/extend to grow a basic volume) that is a shell that can be invoked from the
"DOS" window. Are you saying that there is a third version in the Win2K
Resource Kit? Or are you referring to one of these two?

The Help and Support File in WinXP has several pages reached by Searching
for "extend" and following the related links. There are a lot of gotchas in
using Diskpart /extend: only works for volumes formatted NTFS, and not for
the current system or boot volume; must be followed by contiguous
unallocated space; special rules for dynamic volumes; etc. Read carefully
before beginning.

Google finds several hundred hits for "diskpart + extend". Here's one of
them:
How to Use Diskpart.exe to Extend a Data Volume
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=325590

RC