Expanding the C drive in Windows 2003 Sp2

[kamran7446]

Hi,

I need to expand a VM windows server 2003 R2 C: drive, using VMware vcenter convertor, bout it did not give me the option to increase the C: drive. What is the other option? or what I have missed in using the V2V? Thanks.

[nava_thulasi39]

Hi,

Have you modified the Target size of the Source Volume (c:) as per the required expansion?

If yes, in the Guest OS - expanded size of the disk shows as Unallocated size?

[kamran7446]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. Yes it is showing as unallocated, but because it is a system drive (C:\) I cannot extend it using Diskpart utility as I can do for the other drives.

Regards,

Kamran7446

[rickardnobel · Accepted solution]

kamran7446 wrote:

Thanks for your reply. Yes it is showing as unallocated, but because it is a system drive (C:\) I cannot extend it using Diskpart utility as I can do for the other drives.

There are different ways to do this for Win 2003 (easy in 2008, just expand in the GUI). For Windows 2003 you could shut down the VM, mount the VMDK into another Windows server, use Diskpart or other tool to expand the partition here - since it is not the boot/system partition. Then mount it back in the original VM.

In VMware official training courses they recommend a free tool from Dell, called extpart.exe. Simple command line tool which expands the boot/system partition while the VM is running. Check it out and try if you like.

It is on Dells FTP site at ftp.dell.com/app, no logon required.

Tool: http://ftp.dell.com/app/ExtPart.exe

[kamran7446]

Hi Ricnob,

Thank you so much for your valuable comment. I knew about the first option but was not sure. I wil try both. Thanks again.

Kamran7446

[kamran7446]

My query was answered and it worked by following the comment I received.

[minitech]

The solution only applies to a single C drive. Otherwise, you need to backup data and restore: http://www.partition-magic.org/vmware/extend-c-drive-vmware.html

[rickardnobel]

Yes, if you have several partitions on the same virtual harddisk you will have to use some 3rd party tool to resize/move the partitions.

[Shocko]

Hi Guys,,

I see this type of question a lot on VM forums i.e. how to extend the OS system partition on a windows 2003 box. Here is what i normally do an it works with minimal effort.

1. Shutdown the vm
2. Resize the vmdk upwards to the desired size
3. Boot the VM into Windows PE 2.1 or above. It is very easy to create a WinPE .iso file to boot form using the Windows AIK. The WinPE 2.1 environment has diskpart.exe based on windows 2008 so can shrink and resize boot volumes. In my environment I used PXE to boot to WinPE
4. Reboot the VM and the Guest OS will now have an extended system volume/partition

:smileylaugh:

[Shocko]

Also, be careful attaching .vmdk files that contain boot partitions to other VMs. In windows 2008, the boot manager uses disk signatures to identify boot drives. When attached to another system that disk signature can be over-written meaning when it's atatched back, it wont boot . This is not really an issue in windows 2003 but worth noting.

[kamran7446]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply but this question has already been answered by Ricnob. I tried the solution given in his comment and can confirm that it did work.

Regards,

Kamran7446

[xbradshr]

I tried to expand C using the dell extpart.exe. In my case it caused the C drive to show a red cross. Fortunately I had a veeam backup to rollback.

[xbradshr]

I tried to expand a 2003 system partition, by adding the disk on to another 2003 VM, and using diskpart. I managed to extend the partition. But later found the VM would not boot. A check on the logs of the borrowed VM showed a warning , and the message "Changing the disk signature of disk 1 because it is equal to the disk signature of disk 0."  I expect 2003 changed the signature on the disk, as you warned about this on 2008. Not sure how the servers end up with identical signatures, unless its because they come from clones?

Forutunately i had a Veeam backup to rollback, and am looking for good third party tools.

[xbradshr]

further investigation shows that borrowing another VM failed, because both VMs must have been clones, and the C drive had identical disk signatures.

Before borrowing another VM, check the disk signature, in the registry location HKLM\system\MountedDevices