I must have extended 30 server C: drives. To the point where I feel like I am the master. It is very simple in the virtual world, but always be cautious and make backups. With that said let me take you through some quick steps.
STEP 1: Make a backup or take a snapshot.
STEP 2: Shut down the VM that you want to extend the C or /boot drive on.
STEP 3: Edit Settings in the VM and click on the hard drive you want to give extra space to. Then append 10-20 (whatever) Gigs to the drive and then click ok. You will see vCenter progress back complete with success. **Note the datastore location of the VMDK**
STEP 4: With the server still shut down, add the server to another existing server. I like to use a 2008 server since we can extend it through the GUI. However, I will show both ways with command line as well.
——-2008 – Right click my computer and click manage. (+) Expand Storage – Then click on Disk Management. From here you will notice your drive has the free space. Just right click on the drive and hit Extend. From here it should be a Next – Next thing. If it stops you with the next, just adjust the MB down one number and then take it back to make sure you get all MB’s.
——-2003 or CMD – Right click my computer and click manage. Right click disk manager and rescan the disks. Once you can see the disk, open up a command prompt. Type in “diskpart”. This should start up the diskpart program from within your C:\windows\system32. If it doesn’t, then you may want to install the admin tools on that machine. Next you want to type “List vol”. This will list all the corresponding volumes of HDD on that particular server. Hopefully, you will see the one with the space you desired. Beside that volume will be a number. Then just type “Select Vol (?)”. Obviously the ? will be the volume number you recently found. Then just type “extend”. You should get a successful response if all went well.
Step 5: Remove the HDD from the server you added it to. Make sure not to click Remove and Delete *duh. This would be very, very bad.
Step 6: Power on your newly extended VM.
If for some reason you were to get a error message like Windows Boot Failed – 0xc000000e Attach a 2008 server cd and then Boot from it. Click on Recover. Open up a command prompt and use the following commands. cd boot bootsect /nt60 c: /force /mbr bootrec /rebuildbcd Answer Yes to the following question to complete the rebuild. Then just restart the server.
Hi Wes,
The steps you included are not easy to follow.
There is an easy way of extending C Boot partition without any down time to the server:
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IV. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
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*NOTE: You must use the Terminal Services Advanced Client or attach a keyboard, mouse and monitor to the system.
To install the utility, perform the following steps:
1) Download the self-extracting executable ExtPart.exe from support.dell.com.
2) Run the self-extracting executable to extract the utility (extpart.exe) to the hard disk of your system. The default extract location is c:\dell\ExtPart.
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V. EXTENDING A BASIC DISK USING EXTPART
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1) From the Start Menu select Run.
2) Type ‘cmd’ and click OK to run the command line utility.
3) Change directories to c:\dell\ExtPart or the location the utility extpart.exe was extracted.
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VI. USAGE
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extpart [volume size]
volume – the volume to extend. e.g. f:, g:, etc (only basic volumes)
size – the size in megabytes by which to extend the volume.
Example:
To extend the g: volume by 1 GB (1024 MB) use the following command:
extpart g: 1024
Hope this helps.
Thanks Mostafa! I have used this handy Dell program before. However, at the time of this posting it was unavailable. I don’t know if they retracted it or was in process of an update. Definitely a great and easy tool. I appreciate you taking time to post this.
-Wes