Pre-configured Windows 2003 servers are commonly ordered by small businesses. Dell ships some great ones, but they have an annoying habit of configuring a very small C partition for the pre-installed OS. Sometimes they do this even if you have specifically modified the order to prevent it. For Desktop PCs, a terrific tool you can use to resize any partition is Acronis Disk Director. Equivalent tools for servers are very expensive, but if you get a new Dell Windows 2003 server shipped in this state, there is a neat trick to fix the issue if you so wish that does not rely on expensive third-party software.

In this example, for the sake of specificity we are assuming that Dell shipped the server with a 250GB mirrored pair as logical disk 0 and a 750GB RAID array as logical disk 1. We are also assuming that for some reason the vendor formatted the first logical disk into a small 12GB C boot partition and a large (empty) D data partition of over 230GB. In this example, we are going to delete the D partition and resize the C partition to take up the whole disk 0. Other configurations are possible, but this is a good example of the technique. Another important assumption is that this is a new server with no user data on it whatsoever, so we can experiment with no adverse consequences!

The first step while the system is running is to go into computer management (start->run->compmgmt.msc) and delete the D partition. Since they have already loaded the OS for us, it is not possible using the standard tools to resize the C partition since it is the boot partition. For the next step we will use a standard Vista setup DVD. This DVD has lots and lots of drivers for storage peripherals.

Reboot the system from the DVD drive containing the Vista setup DVD. When prompted, press any key to boot from CD/DVD, select English, select Install Now. When you are prompted to enter a product key, enter SHIFT-F10, and you will be presented with a command prompt X:\Sources>

Then, enter the command DISKPART

At the DISKPART> prompt, enter the command LIST DISK

You should see something like:

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Opt
Disk 0 Online 232GB 220GB
Disk 1 Online 698GB 681KB

This verifies that the two logical disks are visible. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter the command SELECT DISK 0

You should receive the verification message “Disk 0 is now the selected disk”. At the DISKPART prompt, enter the command LIST PART

You should see something similar to:

Partition ### Type Size Offset
Partition 1 OEM 63MB 32KB
Partition 2 Primary 12GB 63MB

This verifies that Disk 0 has only the invisible Dell OEM Diagnostic partition and the 12GB OS partition - C. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter the command

SELECT PART 2

and wait for the verification message “Partition 2 is now the selected partition”. At the DISKPART prompt, enter the command EXTEND and wait for the message “Diskpart has successfully extended the volume”.

To check your work, you could enter the command LIST PART to review. It should show something like:

Partition ### Type Size Offset
Partition 1 OEM 63MB 32KB
Partition 2 Primary 232GB 63MB

Now the C partition takes up the maximum possible space on the first logical disk. Assuming all went well, enter the command EXIT to leave DISKPART, EXIT again to kill the command prompt, and hit the big red Xs a couple of times to cancel the Vista DVD installation.

You should then remove the DVD and reboot into Windows Server 2003. Windows may ask you to reboot again after discovering the new configuration.

After this, your C partition in Windows Server will take up the entire DISK 1.