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Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

 
Jim_111
Occasional Advisor

Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

I have seen a few postings to this topic and no clear resolution.

I have a LC2000r that was NT 4.0 and we upgraded to Win2K server. It has the Netraid 1si, 2x9GB drives on Array 0 in a Raid 1 (system) and 3x18GB drives on Array 1 in a Raid 5 config. I had one open slot for the hot swap drives and needed to add some capacity so I added another 18GB drive and wanted to update to 54GB of space.

I added the drive to the bay, installed the NetRaid assistant, saw the drive as Ready, selected the new drive and the Raid 5 Array and choose Add Capacity. It took several hours and the Array was reconfigured.

Check to see my new found space and there is no change in Win2k, Go to disk management and Disk 1 shows the new capacity of 50.87GB, but 16.96GB is Unallocated. My disk type is Basic and I am a bit confused as to what my options are for allocating the new drive space as part of my Raid 5 Array and Win2k.

Thanks,
Jim
11 REPLIES 11
Joaquin Gil de Vergara
Respected Contributor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

update disk1 to Dinamic Disk

Then extend tha logical drive.... ;-)
Teach is the best way to learn
kris rombauts
Honored Contributor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

Hi Jim,

pls have a look at Microsoft's Q article Q304736. Microsoft have a tool called Diskpart
that will extend an existing NTFS volume to use the free space.

It talks about a MSCS cluster shared disk but it is not limited to a cluster configuration, ignore the details that are specific to clustering.


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q304736


regards, Kris
Jim_111
Occasional Advisor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

I see two different approaches to the same problem. Any thoughts as to what the better (safer) solution is? I see no reports in Google that indicate a problem with diskpart and it seems to work with both basic and dynamic disks. I see two potential issues with going to dynamic disks 1)The Only OS that can run on it is Win2K...this is the data drives here so that's not an issue. 2)I read somewhere that if you upgrade to dynamic disks while there is a disk that is unallocated, the unallocated disk will not be usable after going to dynamic. That tells me that I would have needed to update to dynamic before adding the drive in NetRaid asst and I would be fine from there?

Comments?
Jim
Jim_111
Occasional Advisor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

Ok, so I choose the diskpart route, seemed easy enough.

I received the message Diskpart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending.

I decided to take a look in disk Management after exiting diskpart and sure enough the raid volume extended to 52GB, allright very good I thought. Just another unfounded MS error. Upon checking Windows explorer the size and free space had not changed. I rebooted thinking the changes wouldn't complete until then. Rebooted just fine, same issue, no new space.

Went back disk mgr to check the new volume and sure enough the Capacity in the volume list did not change, but the capacity in the graphical view did. The properties reflect two different capacities...see attachment.

Now what?

Jim
Joaquin Gil de Vergara
Respected Contributor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

What Service Pack do you have?
Teach is the best way to learn
Jim_111
Occasional Advisor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

Win2k SP2
Joaquin Gil de Vergara
Respected Contributor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

Update disk1 to dinamic

the unallocated disk can be allocated (in response to your second question)

It's strange that appears the 0 in unallocated space (???????)

Make a good backup off all data before the update

I think that if you update disk to dinamic then you can allocate the 16 GB to the volume... without problems

You can try update to SP3 too....

Good Luck!!
Teach is the best way to learn
Jim_111
Occasional Advisor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

Joaquin,

No offense, but neither of the options are appealing. I have created a ticket with MS and will advise as to the result.

Thank you very much for your multiple postings.
Jim
Jim_111
Occasional Advisor

Re: Adding capacity to LC2000r with Win2k, unallocated space

Well, we have it all figured out so I hope this information can be useful to future users of this config and Win2K.

I opened a call to Microsoft and after a few hours it was determined that it couldn't be done if diskpart did not work. I kept the call going and here is what happened..

Microsoft reverted our array back to the original config using a disk probe tool. We rebooted the system into Command prompt, safe mode, reran diskpart and it was fine. No problems what so ever. Everything else was done correctly except for booting to Command prompt, safe mode.

Thanks to Kris for the diskpart tip as that is definitely the way to go. Diskpart took all of 2 minutes to complete

Jim