| Subject: | I screwed up, how to recover from undersized system partition? |
| Posted by: | sailorfej (je…@sailorfej.net) |
| Date: | 26 Feb 2007 |
Ok, I knew better, but it was late, and I was thinking like I was
installing a NT 4 Server. ( I did this a while ago, when 2003, first
came out.)
Anyways, I installed Windows 2003 server with only a 4GB system
partition, thus far I have made due, but it is becoming increasingly
difficult.
I would like increase the size of the system partition, this machine
is the master domain controller, and actually the only Windows 2003
server on my network.
It currently has a single 80GB HDD configured with 3 partitions, all
Basic, I have added a new 300 GB hdd currently unpartitioned.
As far as I can determine the only way I can fix the situation is to
backup the data files, and reinstall the server from scratch,
correctly configuring the drives, and manually recreate all the AD
accounts (user and computer), then restore the data.
Am I correct in my understanding that attempting use DR disk, or
restoring system state from backups to a new differently partitioned
disk won't work because partition data, including signatures are
stored as part of backed up system state?
If any one knows of an easier way to increase the size of the system
partition I would appreciate hearing about it, I have heard
anecdotally that some people have managed to do this with diskpart.exe
(first changing it from basic to dynamic), although Microsoft's docs
say it can't be done.
If anyone knows of an inexpensive and yet reliable third party tool
capable of this I would love to hear about it.
Thanks
Jeff