resize w2k server boot partition

[Paul]

I Have a w2k server with dell openmanage array manager installed.
4 disks, 2 x 18Gb, 2 x 36GB
1 x 18gb with a 4Gb OS partition mirrored to the other 18GB
1 x 36GB with a 36GB data partition mirrored to the other 36GB

each partition is contained in its own virtual disk

I need to increase the size of the OS partition.

I have unmirrored the OS virtual disk and tried volumemanager to
increase this partition but it won't let me.

Can someone please advise solutions to this problem

Paul

 

[Bjorn Landemoo]

Paul

Does this mean that your 18GB disks has only a 4GB partition, and 14GB of
free, unpartitioned, unformatted space? In that case, you might be able to
use diskpart.exe from "safe mode with command prompt" to expand your system
partition to fill the entire disk.

This is normally not recommended on the system partition, but usually works
anyway. Also see this MS Knowledge Base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=325590

Another option is to perform an upgrade installation, as this article
describes:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=289876

Best regards

Bjorn

 

[paul]

I have played about with volumemanager and i am now in the following
situation:

I have my original 4GB system partition and also have an 8gb partition
which is now active.

openmanage array manager shows my 4gb partition (J as healthy
(system) and my 8gb (C as active.

when the server is booted it shows a dual boot and i choose the new
partition to boot.

I would like to delete the old 4GB partition but i am worried that i
will not be able to boot afterwards in case the boot.ini or ntldr
files are stored there. also volumemanager will not allow me to delete
the old partition anyway.

Any advice?

Paul

 

[Bjorn Landemoo]

paul

This statement is interesting:

openmanage array manager shows my 4gb partition (J as healthy
(system) and my 8gb (C as active.

The partition indicated as (system) should be the active (bootable)
partition, that would also explain why it won't let you delete it. Why the
other partition (C is indicated as 'active' is beyond me.

Another question is why you get a dual boot menu. Does volume manager come
with a boot manager, like Boot Magic, that you have installed? The only
other explanation would be if you have installed a second instance of your
OS. This would create a dual boot entry in boot.ini on your system
partition.

Best regards

Bjorn

 

[paul]

bjorn,

in volumemanager, both 4gb and 8gb show as active, and it now allows
me to delete the 4gb partition.

in openmanage array manager it shows as i said before (see below)

in windows explorer it shows c: as the 8gb and J: as the 4gb

the really worrying thing is this: if i search for all files modified
today, it shows a load from both c: and j:. which means that both
partitions are being actively and currently used to run the server.

How can this be, and can I safely delete the old 4gb (j partition.

I thought I had this licked but i was wrong.

Please can you shed some light on this situation.

Paul

 

[Bjorn Landemoo]

Paul

I cannot explain why you have two active partitions on one hard disk. I
would say that it indicates a problem with your partition table, as this is
where the information about witch partition is active is stored.

The reason for files being modified on both partitions might depend on what
software is installed, where it is installed, where your operating system
is installed and so on. It is hard to draw any conclusions from what you
have written in your posts.

It probably would be unwise to delete the partition without knowing why
files are being modified on it.

Best regards

Bjorn