1 Topic by sys-eng (edited by sys-eng 2009-04-16 23:54:34)

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Topic: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

This computer has 2 disk drives (320-GB) mirrored on a 3ware RAID controller.  I am upgrading to Vista; therefore, XP must be installed.  The "C" partition must be increase by at least 15-GB.  I used gparted to shrink my data partition "G" and moved the new unallocated space to the front of "G".  That worked great.  I thought I would then be able to expand the "C" partition to include the new unallocated space.

When viewed from gparted or storage manager in XP, the "C" partition appears as a different physical drive from the data partitions.  In reality, all the partitions or "drives" are on the same physical disk but the partition with the OS is identified as a separate disk drive.  The new unallocated space I created with gparted does not show up behind the "C" partition so I cannot expand it.

Can this be overcome?  My goal was to upgrade to Vista and not lose the data on the other partitions.

Last night was the first time I used gparted and was very pleased at how well it works.  The upgrade must begin this afternoon so I hope I get an answer before then.  Thanks in advance for your help.

2 Reply by class413

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

The best manner to give details on the partitions is by posting here a screenshot from GParted.

However, very often the additional data partitions on mswindows systems are logical partitions in an extended partition. Look at the partition list for any partition designated as "extended". If so, the unallocated space of the hard drive is very probably located in the extended partition and not just after your system partition. In this case you have to shrink that extended partition from the left side.

Don't forget to read the GParted manual in the documentation page
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/documentation.php
and to take backup of any important material.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

3 Reply by sys-eng (edited by sys-eng 2009-02-27 19:59:43)

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

I don't know how to do a screent print while booted in gparted.  I have pasted a screen print below of the view from XP storage manager.

I did put the unallocated space in front of the data partititon; however, both XP and gparted see the boot partition as a separate disk device.

4 Reply by class413

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

Hard drives in linux are named
/dev/hda, /dev/hdb, ... (for ATA devices) or
/dev/sda, /dev/sdb, ... (for SATA devices).

The various partitions on a hard drive are named as
/dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, etc.

You can take this info on the partitions of each hard drive from the table that GParted displays under the graph. You can change from a physical drive to another by the menu near the right top of the screen.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

5 Reply by sys-eng

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

I will reboot into gparted and write down the info.  In the previous post, I tried to paste the screen print from CP storage manager but nothing shows up in the message. 

I searched through the gparted manual but did not find any information on this issue - - at least nothing that I recognized anyway.

6 Reply by sys-eng (edited by sys-eng 2009-02-27 23:11:48)

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

I tried the screen print feature but it said that the jpeg photo was saved in the /root directory.  I don't know of any such directory in XP.  I did a search for the file anyway but did not find it.   Below is the info I recorded from the gaprted screen.  The disk drive is 320-GB.  I don't know how to get the unallocated space from sdb to sda.


  Device             Partition        Size  File System     Comment
/dev/sda (25G)    /dev/sda1     25    NTFS                 “C"

/dev/sdb (273G)                      24    unallocated
                         /dev/sdb1        5    NTFS                paging
                         /dev/sdb2    244     extended
                         /dev/sdb5    244     NTFS                data

7 Reply by sys-eng

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

I went into gparted several times but saw no option to move unallocated space between logical devices.  I will just use Windows but that will probably require reformatting the drive then reinstalling XP just so I can upgrade to Vista.  I sure wish I just had a full copy of Vista instead of upgrade.

I will check back here later to see if anyone has a method to solve this partitioning problem.  I woud still like to know if it is possible in case it comes up again.

8 Reply by class413

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

I see that you use a real RAID controller, no software or "fake-RAID".  GParted detects the drive(s)/partitions.
I don't know details on that controller, I am not specialist on RAID, so I guess that the issue is related to the RAID configuration. Is this controller able to show the entire space to the operating system as being 2 independent drives or arrays? This is most probably on the BIOS level. Can you check please what reports the windows disk management on these drives and partitions?

Anyway, I think that GParted can't change the RAID configuration. It works on the partition or partition table level. Perhaps any 3ware tools could help to this job. Eventually, you could avoid to re-install the operating system and software, by taking copies of the partitions and restoring them. This is a job where GParted can help, as well as "Clonezilla", another software optimised for hard drive and partition cloning.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

9 Reply by sys-eng

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

This is an update to maybe help others.  I discovered that the strange partition and device naming was caused by a multi-card reader.  I disconnected it from the motherboard and rebooted then the device and partition names were as expected.   GParted worked great for me then.

10 Reply by class413

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Re: how to increase OS disk size on RAID array - SOLVED

Reading this, I remember a friend that had problems from a card reader!
There were problems with various USB devices too, like keyboards, mice or external drives.

So, you can add SOLVED to the topic title, editing the first post!

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***