Yet Another Reason I Don't Like Windows

[alexander]

So today (and its Saturday) i got to come in to work extra (7:30 am) early to do a what would seem an easy task, resize 2 partitions, its 4:13 PM and i am still in the middle of fixing my issues with Windows.

 

first thing's first, why did i need to resize partitions to begin with? Well when whoever set up the server, set up the server, he decided to allocate 12 gigs of space for the system drive. Now, 4 years later, the remote server that originally had to do just email, runs a few more applications (as you can imagine), and with constant growth of windows, and remote user profiles (although when not logged in they are saved on a different drive) reaching over 2 gigs, the server was running under 2% of the total storage on the system drive. You can imagine how fast it ran, and how safe it was to leave it like it was... :shrug:

 

Windows does NOT like for you to mess around with its partitions. First thing's first though, i boot into the SystemRescue cd, run cfdisk /dev/cciss/c1d0 and what do i see? 2 partitions labeled SFS? for 2k3? hmm something looks weird there already and i start getting bad feelings about the whole thing.

 

 

I create the bakup with partimage, there are a few fs errors that come up (not the first time using partimage, not the first errors like that that i see, so i ignore them). It's time to resize the drive right? so i ntfsresize the second partition to make space that i can add to the primary. immediately i notice that while the partition was resized, it showed up as another partition... weird right?, and the space its not shown under cfdisk, but the space is gone out of the second partition... reboot reveals that there are now 2 pagefiles in the secondary partition, and still no free space. Fine i can always restore a gig or so of data on the second partition, so i decide, blow it away, i will have free space after primary partition, resize it, then recreate secondary....

 

So I reboot into the live cd again, and do exactly that, blow away the secondary partition and try to resize the primary. And wth, it says the partition can not be resized beyond the total capacity of the disk... what disk? Stupid SFS NTFS does not like to be resized, even after recreating the partition and blowing the image back up to it, i could boot into the recovery console, see all the files on the disk but it still wont boot to it. So its 4:30

PM and after a server reinstall, i am pushing last knight's backup back to the server, with any more luck, i should have it all restored and can finally go have something to eat or something.... go home, maybe enjoy the rest of the weekend... possibly...

 

This is why I despise windows on servers, its so locked up, a simple operation that would have taken me an install of fs tools and 10 minutes time and a reboot on Linux (or just a boot into a live cd and a quick resize, journal check and reboot) is taking me over 9 hours... and is still not done on Windows..... so pissed at M$ right now!

[Buffy]

I've never trusted MS's own partitioning tools.

 

My personal preference has actually always been Partition Magic.

 

Costs more and worth it,

Buffy

[C1ay]

My personal preference has actually always been Partition Magic.

 

Me too, it's well worth the price.

[alexander]

Ok, to answer both of your questions, i dont trust MS tools either, that is why i used ntfsresize (from linux ntfs tools) because they do a heck of a better job then any other tool kit out there.

 

The problem was however that server 2k3 uses sfs and a page file that does not like the partition being resized. Basically every single file that was needed to run windows was there, but windows setup would not recognize the OS as being installed.

 

I got out of here at around 9:45 by the way... :confused:

I also got a new tool that allows you to reset passwords on a windows machine, it uses the install cd and copies the installation startup section to load all the drivers, and then jumps into the program that allows you to reset all the local passwords, and if you boot it on your PDC, even domain admin account passwords can be reset... The program (called winkey) creates bootable cds and flash drives and allows you to password protect them so the soft won't be misused. A handy tool to have with you if you do any kind of work on a windows system anywhere (including servers). So if you want to know more about this um iso *wink wink* pm. BTW the copyright license says that i can not distribute the software, but i can create as many images as i want to, and what i do with them is up to me...

 

It would have been a complete terminal server rebuild if it wasnt for this tool. Basically once i restored all the files, i seem to have forgotten to restore the registry, so i did that, something in the reg got screwed up and it made the system unjoin the domain and set the admin password to something crazy.... All the free tools that i have, did not work, because the drivers for the raid card were only recently released, and have not yet trickled down to those distributions, and most of the password reset tools dont deal well with /dev/cciss/c1dop1 block drive, so if it wasnt for the tool, i would have spent the knight at work as well :confused:

 

Anyways, its monday, i am rested and back at work. No problems so far with the server *knocks on wood*. Not a very fun experience....