Computer help - Server out of space - Add to partition

[kansasskydiver 0]

I've been fighting an uphill battle for some time the last IT guy screwed and need help.

Windows SBS 2003 R2 package

2 SCSI 15,000rpm drives in a raid 0

Partition is set up for C and D though the guy before me didn't leave enough room on the C partition to allow space for the server to grow (exchange, sql, active directory etc)

So here's my problem... As of this afternoon they had 70mb of available space on the C partition... Is there any way I can move space from the D to the C to give it some more space to grow? I tried using partition magic but it doesn't work on a Raid config...

Am I screwed?

<--- See look, pink dolphins DO exist!

[ifall 0]

Try pointing the page file to D. My C drive on one server last week was down to 200mb and it was causing all kinds of problems for my users and when I pointed the page file to D it freed up 1.9 gig of space. Do you have any programs installed on C? I usually keep the C drive strictly for system files and operating system and install any other programs on our D drives.

edit to clarify: We put exchange, sql etc. on D as well because of the way we set up the partitions and because they are always growing. Like I said I just don't like to run any applications other than system stuff off C because of the problems you get when you start running out of space. And you know how people like to save all their emails.

[PhreeZone 20]

Look at something like Partition Magic, its saved me a few times in trying to reallocate drive spave on the fly like this.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[bwilling 0]

You might try downloading Acronis latest Disk Director Suite, and see if perhaps they've added support for your raid controller. You can create a bootable CD from the trial (that won't actually commit the changes!) and use that to see if the drives are detected when you boot from it. If they are, buy a copy and you should be able to use it to resize the drives. I'd make sure I had restorable backups before hitting the commit changes button.

BTW, I hope that's not a real critical server, and that you have good backups, because nobody in their right mind runs raid 0 (stripe set with no parity) in a production environment. Just in case you're not aware, if either drive dies, it'll take the whole array with it! Not exactly redundant!

The good news is, if the controller is decent, you should be able to add 2 more drives, and rebuild it into a 0 + 1, and have a fall back mirror of the stripe set you have now.

"If all you ever do is all you ever did, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

[kansasskydiver 0]

Oh I'm WELL aware of the raid problems. The short of the story is, the old IT guy was the owners son. I shouldn't need to say more lol Granted I'm not a genius nor am I an MIS major but I know my way around stuff.

Partion magic won't work on the server because of the raid configuration so I'm not sure if this other one will. Thanks for the advice though.

One thing I have found online is partdisk.exe which is integraded with windows and allows you to extend partitions. However I'm not adding a drive to the server, just want to move some of the space off one partition to the other.

Has anyone ever used partdisk?

[Unstable 9]

Dude - I just realized that I don't know half of the words that are coming out of your keyboard.

[can of worms] Buy a Mac? [\can of worms]

=========Shaun ==========

[eeneR 3]

Quote

Dude - I just realized that I don't know half of the words that are coming out of your keyboard.

[can of worms] Buy a Mac? [\can of worms]

Um he is talking server stuff. A MAC could NEVER do what this box is doing This is not PC stuff. Way out of a MAC persons League. Heck a normal PC persons league for that matter too.

She is not a "Dumb Blonde" - She is a "Light-Haired Detour Off The Information Superhighway."
eeneR
TF#72, FB#4130, Incauto

[Shawndiver 0]

Back up
Blow Away
Rebuild (properly this time)
Restore

Trying to modify system partitions rarely ends well!

_________________

[kansasskydiver 0]

Quote

Dude - I just realized that I don't know half of the words that are coming out of your keyboard.

[can of worms] Buy a Mac? [\can of worms]

To Shaun: Macs are great but they're not servers and most companies aren't set up to run macs/spend the money...

To Rest: Bandaid approach, disabled volume shadowing (no one knows it's there anyway) and free'd up 500mb. This will at least get me over the hump.

[kansasskydiver 0]

Quote

Back up
Blow Away
Rebuild (properly this time)
Restore

Trying to modify system partitions rarely ends well!

hehehe oh I agree But until they order the rack mount server in a few months I've got to make due. New server will run dual quads, raid 5, and on a newly wired gigabit lan

AND

When i set up the new server, i'm going to allocate a tiny bit more than sub 10gigs for the main partition lol

[ifall 0]

Quote

Quote

Back up
Blow Away
Rebuild (properly this time)
Restore

Trying to modify system partitions rarely ends well!

hehehe oh I agree But until they order the rack mount server in a few months I've got to make due. New server will run dual quads, raid 5, and on a newly wired gigabit lan

AND

When i set up the new server, i'm going to allocate a tiny bit more than sub 10gigs for the main partition lol

Nice? But I have to ask why you are running your applications on your main (system) partition? What do you use your other one(s) for? Or is that going to change too?

[kansasskydiver 0]

That's going to change

Again I'll refer to the above statement of who set up the server lol. He set up the C and D, used D as the file server and then when he installed ANYTHING it all go put onto C under program files One smart cookie huh lol.

So yeah that's going to change and the current server will turn into the sql box and ISO storage

[ifall 0]

Quote

That's going to change

Again I'll refer to the above statement of who set up the server lol. He set up the C and D, used D as the file server and then when he installed ANYTHING it all go put onto C under program files One smart cookie huh lol.

So yeah that's going to change and the current server will turn into the sql box and ISO storage

Thats what I figured. Second he took all the defaults when installing it.

[beowulf 1]

Get an external hard drive or multiple drives and back up everything to both tape and the drives so that you have two copies. The redo the server the way you want it to be and put everything back. No matter what you do make sure you back everything up.