QTParted and NTFS/ Windows Server 2003

[Tom Metro]

Jerry Feldman wrote:
> We have a Windows Server 2003 system...
> I used QTParted...to expand the partition...but it did not expand the
> file system...

It should have.


> (I tried the Windows diskpart utility to see if I could
> expand it to the full size). 

And did it let you? Without deleting and recreating the partition?

I'm not familiar with Windows Server 2003, but earlier versions of 
Windows don't come with partitioning tools that allow resizing 
partitions non-destructively.


> I then rebooted Knoppix and shrunk the partition...

Why? An attempt to undo the failed step?


> ...but this time Windows saw 16GB. What I ended up doing was to
> expand the partition to its full size, boot Windows, then boot Knoppix
> and shrink it down a few hundred MB. Windows then recognized about
> 70GB. At the moment the problem is solved, but I'm wondering where the
> file system is expanded?

It should be expanded by ntfresize, which is used by QTParted, but 
apparently the behavior was buggy. Had you ran ntfresize from the 
command line, you might have seen warnings or errors that would shed 
light on what went wrong.

It's possible that on your first pass, the partition table was changed, 
but ntfresize failed to run, so the file system remained unchanged. Then 
your trip back to Windows and running chkdisk cleared the problem, so 
the second resize attempt in QTParted not only resized the partition, 
but also succeeded in running ntfresize.

As I've mentioned on the list before, I recommend running ntfresize in 
its "dry run" mode from the command line before attempting a resize from 
within a GUI.

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/

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