HELP... mounting a drive to add space to primary partition

**dr_jones** · February 9th, 2004, 05:13 PM

im running out of space on by installation partition.. the culprit being the system32 folder. so ive decided to mount a drive in the windows folder named system322... what i want to do is copy the contents of the system 32 folder to the mounted drive, delete system 32 folder and rename system322 to system32.

er thats were the problem starts

. the recovery console wont let me copy any more than one file at a time .. and i dont think it will let me copy folders..

win98 startupdisk is out of the question since it wont read the ntfs partitions im using.

how can i do this? im a little stuck..

can i use windows xp enviroment variables to create a value for the sytem32 folder.. pointing it to the newly mounted drive?

thanks in advance

**TripleRLtd** · February 9th, 2004, 10:03 PM

Originally Posted by dr_jones

im running out of space on by installation partition.. the culprit being the system32 folder. so ive decided to mount a drive in the windows folder named system322... what i want to do is copy the contents of the system 32 folder to the mounted drive, delete system 32 folder and rename system322 to system32.

er thats were the problem starts

. the recovery console wont let me copy any more than one file at a time .. and i dont think it will let me copy folders..

win98 startupdisk is out of the question since it wont read the ntfs partitions im using.

how can i do this? im a little stuck..

can i use windows xp enviroment variables to create a value for the sytem32 folder.. pointing it to the newly mounted drive?

thanks in advance

Err, I don't get what you are doing doc! If the new drive is larger, just ghost the darn thing to the newer larger drive and be done with it??? Am I wrong? Am I confus-ed????

**dr_jones** · February 10th, 2004, 06:54 AM

yes sadly you are missing the point.

. the system32 folder cannot be renamed/moved or deleted when running a windows session/ in safe mode (as far as i can tell) or in dos( since the system partition is formated NTFS).

theres about 200meg left on the system partition and so acordingly i need to incerease the size of it... mounting a drive(and by a 'drive' a mean a newly formated partition on a seperate physical drive) to it is the only way to increase the capacity without reinstalling the operating system and recreating larger partitions

the lack of space is caused by the rapidly expanding system32 folder.. which i'd like to make LARGER. by as i said creating and mounting a 2 gig drive in the c:\windows\ directory called system322 (cant call it system32 just yet because of the existing folder of the same name) then my some means im going to have to transfer the contentes of the system32 fodler to the newly mounted drive and then rename it to system32.. voila 2 gig extra on the system partition and a happy windows....

ive just downloaded a version of linux that i can run from cd which has support for ntfs volumes.. shuld do the trick.. and allow me to move the files and folders that i need from without the windows enviroment

**confus-ed** · February 10th, 2004, 07:47 AM

There's lots of stuff you can do less drastic & supported than this

... either that or it wasn't big enough in the first place

**delmer_1** · February 10th, 2004, 08:24 AM

Maybe i am missing the point, but this seems like the most *** backwards way of fixing this problem

**Ya_know** · February 10th, 2004, 08:32 AM

Oh my!

Wait...

I get it, this is a joke!

**CeeBee** · February 10th, 2004, 08:35 AM

Dunno what you've been smoking.. but this is a proof that you should stop! If you move your system32 to another drive you won't be able to start windowze. Period.

**dr_jones** · February 10th, 2004, 12:04 PM

arrgh..

guys..firstly...... the process of mounting a drive to an empty folder is something well documented and is a way of increasing a logical drives capacity... as simply as i can.. the location of the newly mounted drive is in the \windows directory.... where the current system32 folder is, but has not yet been renamed(cant have 2 folders with the same name now can we) :|.......(currently it's called system322).

'if i were to move the contents of the current system32 folder to the 2gig mounted drive which i would then rename system32' windows whould still find the folder where it should be..but with a dramitically increased size' windows whould then stop its annoying ''disk space is low' routine and all will be well.
this process whould of course have to be carried out from outside of the operating system..

the machines primary sytem partition was to small in the first place as you've quite rightly pointed out.. but id really rather not format the ba£$$$D increase the partition size and reinstall windows and the 50 or so applications that are currently installed.

**CeeBee** · February 10th, 2004, 12:13 PM

You're not getting the point... or you're

Windowze needs to load to see that drive; in order to load it needs to see the system32 folder first. But it cannot see system32 on the mounted drive because it hasn't loaded yet... Now are you getting the point?
Get a bigger drive and ghost your current drive (boot from floppy), then just swap them.

**Ya_know** · February 10th, 2004, 12:15 PM

I think you are going about this all wrong by picking the system32 folder...there has to be a better method to do what you desire, without moving system32!

Have you relocated the pagefile to a different partition for instance...? Turned off hibernation, turned off system restore? All of these things will offer up a lot of extra space if they haven’t been done already.

What about removing large applications, then reinstall them to the new drive (as a normal drive, not a mounted directory), remove any unneeded windows setup components…

Or even someone suggested ghosting the old drive to a new larger drive, and see if that will offer the desired result.

Bottom line is, there are many ways to skin a cat. What you propose to do is skin him from the inside out...which although remotely possible, seems to be the most difficult solution imaginable, and currently only believed possible through theory, with no working model to mirror.

Good luck! Post back if you resolve this on your own, I'd like to know if it works out your way---or not!

**NooNoo** · February 10th, 2004, 12:29 PM

I'm with Ya_know on this... Of all the folders you chose to move, system32 is probably the worst choice. My vote would be to ghost the partition, increase the partition size, put ghost back, done and dusted inside 60 mins (including finding the network bootdisk to do it.)

**geoscomp** · February 10th, 2004, 12:36 PM

Or..if it is xp pro..just switch to dynamic disk and make the 2 gb drive part of the c drive. Although why you are adding an old, slow 2 gb drive is beyond me

**Ya_know** · February 10th, 2004, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

I'm with Ya_know on this...

Uuuuuuu.........

Somebody pinch me...

**CeeBee** · February 10th, 2004, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by geoscomp

Or..if it is xp pro..just switch to dynamic disk and make the 2 gb drive part of the c drive. Although why you are adding an old, slow 2 gb drive is beyond me

Cannot convert system partition to spanned partition!

**jitBob** · February 10th, 2004, 01:11 PM

Are we talking about your stripe set or the other single drive? Which computer? Why not move large programs over?

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