partition program for windows server 2003

Praetorian

Has anyone got any suggestions for a reasonably priced program that I can get that will work with Windows server 2003. I just want to resize a partition thats all.

I've tried partition magic and the paragon software and they both complain about not working on Windows server.

http://eu.acronis.com/enterprise/products/diskdirector/

Acronis's disk director would do the job nicely, but there is no way I could justify €450 + for a simple drive resize for a client.

I'm getting desperate now, need a life saver

Jaoibh

Acronis's disk director is just the only way to go from experience.

Capt'n Midnight

in windows
do a scandsk and defrag first, pagedfrg too
defrag /b at command prompt

if a single drive then get a knoppix or ubuntu live cd
use gparted or qtparted - it's on the menu or at the command line (terminal)

if using raid you need to be certain that raid drivers are running from the live CD - and don't even think about doing it if the 2003 machine uses software raid

Seriously - server means there is a working backup (or should be)
for €450 buy a large SATA/EIDE drive and software mirror to it.
now break the mirror and run from the single drive and then resize it by extending the partitions or whatever, when you are happy you can wipe the original drive and mirror back.
You could also do a backup / restore BUT make sure you have a mirror before this so you have a bootable system at all times.

Praetorian

I read about the linux fix (I was hours scratching my head on this one this afternoon), not helped by the fact that they had **** slow internet for such a big company. Problem with the server is that its in use nearly all the time during office hours, its very difficult for me to even get a reboot in, and doing it twice today was pushing it. They are in a big building with a shared comms room and I can't get access outside of office hours. All a pain in the a$$ for something that any IT guy can do in 2 secs with the right software

Surely their has to be other software. I don't mind spending 70-80 euro on it if I have to. Or if there are any other alternatives please PM me.

I really appreciate your time Capt'n Midnight!

Capt'n Midnight

if it has hot swap raid then you can usually swap the drives out on the fly once you are conficent in the array software

are you trying to make the drives bigger or smaller ?
slap in another drive and extent the partition (ok it's a sever you'll have to make sure that the new drive is part of a raid arrray somehow)

or do you just need more space on the system drive

the linux disk is for offline use and if it has to move data out of the way it's quite slow, but I'd recomend that what ever you do, that shrink ing the system drive would be dond off line

software mirroring can be done online

Praetorian

Thanks again for the reply Capt'n Midnight. It's not a hot swap array. I'm 99% sure I have the solution now thanks to Jaoibh. My apologies for not updating the thread quickly enough, you beat me by 2 minutes Seems to me that Acronis has cornered a niche market and they're wide open to be attacked with a reasonably priced alternative. Thanks again for the reply.