How to extend the ‘C: Drive’ system partion, without rebooting 2003 server

Hey Guys,

I am sure many of us being Systems Administrator have struggled at time to keep the free space on Servers. especially the system partition on Windows 2003 Server right ?

Even after deleting the log files, some how the OS grows as it has to get its monthly security updates from Microsoft and other software installs .. etc.

I know, most people try to use DiskPart command line utility, but it does not work on the system partition or I should say OS partition in lay man’s term.

In the new OS like Windows 2008 pr 2008 R2 etc., we don’t need to worry about this as the OS has new feature to shrink or expand the system partition with out rebooting the server. which mean no down time.

So, how can we expand or extend the NTFS formatted C drive on 2003 Server with out rebooting it?

Solution is a utility called ExtPart from Dell. its a simple command line utility easy to use tool to expand or extend the size of your C drive provided you have more disk space or another partition that is un-formated.

Dell Basic Disk Expansion

The ExtPart utility provides support for online volume expansion of NTFS formatted basic disks. This is a self extracting file that will install the extpart.exe utility. No reboot is necessary.

Please note some people think that ExtPart does not work on 64 bit OS of Windows 2003, but just to let you know it does work, its just the extractable binary is only 32 bit so it will give you an error that its a 32 bit application if you execute it on a 64 bit windows.

I have used it recently, deployed a virtual machine from a template, the template had the OS installed on only 20 GB. I added more size to the HDD from the data store, from the windows side in the disk management I can see the raw partition, all I had to do is create a new partition and used the dell ExtPart follow the steps and I will extend the C drive, you will not need to reboot the server.

The solution is to extract the binary after downloading on a 32 bit OS and use it on a 64 bit OS and its work.

Their you go! you can now expand the C drive with out rebooting the OS 🙂

the link given below takes you to Dell website what has the ExtPart utility :

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails?driverId=R64398

Hope you find my post useful and if you have any question please feel free to comment below.

Virtualization Technologies used today and its benefits!

Most of the business today are choosing virtualization for Server consolidation, however along with that they get a lot more benefits:

• Reduce power and space requirement in data centres
• Fast application and service provisioning
• Improved manageability
• Business continuity

When these factors are measured by a survey taken by f5 few years a go we got the following results.

This clearly explains that the Businesses are focused to do server consolidation and reduction of power and space requirement which is the driving factors even today.

The types of virtualization do we currently have ? as discussed this on my previous post, I am going to compare them today.

According to surveys taken recently we have the following stats.

This clearly explains us that most of the Virtualization technologies are been used today, however still the most popular one is Server virtualization. Never the less this is taken on a different level today to get the Desktop virtualization for the end users companies like Citrix and VMware have got a lot of powerful products for this.

Are you Secure when you browse the web ?

Hi All,

I have a question today?

How fussy are you to which Wi-Fi signal you connect?  i.e., connecting to an open or a secure Wi-Fi connection.

As we know that most of the Coffey shops and pubs allow you to use the free Wi-Fi open connections. Do you even think twice before connecting to a open Wi-Fi signal?

Please put some time to understand what is the risk involved in using an open Wi-Fi connection.

I know getting internet connectivity when your out and about will look like a blessing. However all your data and your laptop itself can be compromised by anyone connecting to open Wi-Fi connections.

Some people think that having a Anti-Virus program or an Firewall enabled laptop will keep them safe, what they don’t know is when they setup the connection with an open Wi-Fi connection they have already established a trust relation with that router.

Windows 7 gives warning to the user that its very risky to connect to a Open and un-secure Wi-Fi networks yet most of the people I know still connect anyway.

Moreover I know a couple of friends who bought a wireless router and started using it without setting up of security key or changing the default admin password.

Memory Support in Windows – Kernal v User Virtual Addressing

Last week I was on a workshop by Microsoft it was for troubleshooting performance issues on Servers.

One of the interesting thing which I came across in the workshop was about the memory management  and the way Windows handles the memory.

By default Windows allocate’s virtual address space to User mode and Kernal mode, Windows assumes that it has 4 gb of virtual address space and it splits it into two half.

ie. 2 GB virtual address space to Kernal and 2 GB virtual address space to User

We can tweak it and  allocate virtual address space to programs 1 GB to the kernel and to executive component.

This is how you can do it:

First un-hide the hidden files and folder make sure you unhidden the Operating system files too.

on the root directory ie C drive you will find boot.ini file take a backup of it on keep it safe.

Edit boot.ini and add \3GB at the end