I spend a lot of time working with VMware and storage and I often am tasked with getting Microsoft operating systems to recognize drive expansions.
This can cause some headaches sometimes as the “newer, better” drive types can create more problems for the lowly storage admin.
Microsoft’s dynamic disk is particularly frustrating. It promises so much yet cannot expand it’s own boot partition in Server 2003. I recently had a client desire to increase the amount of free space in the boot partition. They had a dynamic C: on Server 2003. I checked gparted, another great open-source drive management tool. Alas, it cannot work with the proprietary format. NTFS in a basic disk has been successfully reverse-engineered by this tool as well as many others, but the dynamic disk proves elusive. I set about seeing if I could change a dynamic disk back into a basic disk (which can be expanded hot using extpart.exe or via gparted).
I came across TestDisk from CGSecurity. This tool is the Microsoft storage equivalent to sliced bread. Following the steps of someone who had already solved this issue, I was able to non-disruptively convert the dynamic disk back to a basic disk with the only requirement being a reboot. I was then able to grow the C: partition for this client.
Further, I came across a desire to expand an extended partition with a logical volume. This tool will also do that. My only grief with this tool is that I didn’t find it sooner.
