Upgrade basic disks to spanned volume ...

J

John7

I have two 200GB basic disks and would like to create one spanned volume of
400GB (and add more disks later).

I do not have space to backup 380GB, so ...

!!! WITHOUT JEOPARDIZING ANY DISK CONTENTS !!!
Can I just ???
- convert both Basic Disks to Dynamic Volumes,
- convert 1st Dynamic Volume to Spanned Volume
- add 2nd Dynamic Volume to Spanned Volume
Windows 2K Help is vague here.

Will installed applications on 1st Basic disk still run ?

Can I add more disks to the Spanned volume later?

Is the Spanned Volume completely lost when one drive fails?


John7
 
J

John7

Thx Bjorn,

So I'll have to stick to basic disks or consider mount points.
The latter sounds promising.

Sorry to ask but I'm scared to fool around with 380GB of data ...

Is there any risk in (un)mounting filled disks (from)to mount points?
Will a mounted drive still have a drive letter?
This would be confusing, can I remove the letter?
Are mount points shareable?

TIA,
John7
 
B

Bjorn Landemoo

John7

I wouldn't even touch a machine with 380GB of valuable data without a
backup. An external hard disk, USB or FW, (or better, a handful of them)
could be used as a low cost option, if a tape solution is out of the
question.

Yes, there is always a risk of loosing data. Not only by using mount
points, I'm sure that I can come up with hundreds of other reasons as well.

No, a mounted drive will not use any drive letter.

Yes, you can share folders that also are mount points, just like any
folder.

Best regards

Bjorn
 
J

John7

Thanks Bjorn,

Last question ...
When disconnecting a disk from a mount point later:
- will the disk get a drive letter again (or can be assign one)?
- will contents of host disk and unmouted disk remain undamaged?

I'll do some studying on this subject before moving to mount points.
I think this is the best I can do. I'll try on old pc and a few disks first.

John7
 
B

Bjorn Landemoo

John7

When you remove the mount point, the disk will not automatically receive a
drive letter, but you can manually assign one through "Change drive letter
and path..." in Disk Management.

The actual disk content shouldn't be changed by adding or removing mount
points, as this basically is a different way of accessing your disks.

There are some issues with mount points, though. This article describes one
of them:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=243514

Here are some recommendations from KB article 205524:

Use NTFS ACLs to protect junction points from inadvertent deletion.

Use NTFS ACLs to protect files and directories that are targeted by
junction points from inadvertent deletion or other file system operations.

Never delete a junction point by using Explorer, a del /s command, or other
file system utilities that walk recursively into directory trees. These
utilities affect the target directory and all subdirectories.

Use caution when you apply ACLs or change file compression in a directory
tree that includes NTFS junction points.

Do not create namespace cycles with NTFS or DFS junction points.

Put all your junction points in a secure location in a namespace where you
can test them out in safety, and where other users will not mistakenly
delete them or walk through them.

Best regards

Bjorn
 

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