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

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

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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

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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????

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

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 :devil:

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

:eek:

Oh my!


Wait...





:grin:

I get it, this is a joke!

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.

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.

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

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!

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.) :D

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

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

I'm with Ya_know on this...

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Uuuuuuu.........http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/faint.gif





Somebody pinch me... :p

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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

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Cannot convert system partition to spanned partition! :flame:

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

so what is the configuration of the drives? how big (total physical size) is the drive in question. how many partitions are there? how big are each of the partitions? how much free space on these partitions?

there has to be about 3 dozen better ways of doing this. if you are worried about data loss...ghost to another drive, use partition magic to resize the partitions. that way if you screw up, your original is still intact and you can try again.

ok.. there are 3 harddrives 2x 37gig raptors and 1x 120gig wetern dig

raptor 1.. has 3 partitions one of 2.5 gig (dont ask me why)for os(win xp pro) 1 of 1.4 gig for page file and 1 of whatever is left for program files.

raptor 2.. .has 1 partition :drive sized and is used for video files

drive 3.. the 120 gig has 1 5 gig partition for secondary os(2k3 server) 1 1.5gig partition for pagefile, 1 of 10 gig for program files, 1 of 60 gig for more files another 3gig for system log files, active directory etc.. and a load of space free.


the xp os partition has just about run out of space.. and almost 1 gigs worth of data is in the system32 folder.. so i thought id make it bigger by mounting a dynamic drive to an empty folder.. copying said contents and renaming mount to system32..(d@mn i think ive said this already :) )

(the 2 gig mounted dynamic disk of which i have spoken is part of the free space on the 3rd drive)

any way... sytem restore is tunred off.. windows temp folder and my documents have been reloctaed to the 60gig parition on drive 3.. i have uninstalled all that i could of windows legacy(games, acccesabilty etc)

hoped that xp would order its boot sequence to take into account any dynamic disks and there contents if they happen to be system critical .. but as you say seems not.. so

ive never ghosted a drive before, ..? never had a need to.. will i have to change the boot.ini file after the process.. since the os will end up on a different disk to the one its on presently?

how do i go about ghosting it? ive seen pro apps to do it but does xp pro have its own method?

also.. will disabling windows file protection allow me to copy the contenes of the system32 folder to another one? im not able to do this at present.. '' file in use''

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Originally Posted by dr_jones

ok.. there are 3 harddrives 2x 37gig raptors and 1x 120gig wetern dig

raptor 1.. has 3 partitions one of 2.5 gig (dont ask me why)for os(win xp pro) 1 of 1.4 gig for page file and 1 of whatever is left for program files.

raptor 2.. .has 1 partition :drive sized and is used for video files

drive 3.. the 120 gig has 1 5 gig partition for secondary os(2k3 server) 1 1.5gig partition for pagefile, 1 of 10 gig for program files, 1 of 60 gig for more files another 3gig for system log files, active directory etc.. and a load of space free.


the xp os partition has just about run out of space.. and almost 1 gigs worth of data is in the system32 folder.. so i thought id make it bigger by mounting a dynamic drive to an empty folder.. copying said contents and renaming mount to system32..(d@mn i think ive said this already :) )

any way... sytem restore is tunred off.. windows temp folder and my documents have been reloctaed to the 60gig parition on drive 3.. i have uninstalled all that i could of windows legacy(games, acccesabilty etc)

hoped that xp would order its boot sequence to take into account any dynamic disks and there contents if they happen to be system critical .. but as you say seems not.. so

ive never ghosted a drive before, ..? never had a need to.. will i have to change the boot.ini file after the process.. since the os will end up on a different disk to the one its on presently?

how do i go about ghosting it? ive seen pro apps to do it but does xp pro have its own method?

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So, Raptor one has ONLY a 2.5 gig partition for the system/boot ? That is your problem right there. Partition Magic will take care of that. Let's calculate that. A 40 gig drive with a 2.5 gig partition for the OS, 1.4 for the swap file, and 36 gigs for the rest???? Come on now. All you have to do now is repartition. Not all that stuff that you planned on doing which would likely kill the system.
Come on now: think about it for a minute. Or an hour....however long it takes. You seemingly have a good system hardware wise, but it has been set up WRONG partition wise. THIS IS NOT DOS! No wonder you're running out of room.
Solution: repartition with a known, good, program, and your problem will be solved. As far as paying for a partitioning program...well, I don't know: but someone here will! In fact, I would like to know about a 'free" re-partitioning program. THAT is what you need. Free partitioning program on the web: NooNoo??? If there is one, her or -ed will find it.

ranish RTFM cannot be understated when arranging partitions. I would still prefer to ghost the original partition before starting this and I would also back up the entire system.

BTW 2.5 for XP? The instructions say at least 3.5gig. I started with 10gig partitions for XP, I have now moved to 15 gig partitions (because office is so damned big!!).

ok..partition magic should solve your problem...just steal some space from your largest partition on the first raptor and add it to your tiny system partition. but just like noonoo said, ghosting to another drive before hand is a good idea...because if the partition resizing goes bad, you're pretty much screwed.

when we say Ghost it, we are referring to using Norton Ghost to create an image of one drive onto another. I am not aware of any free 3rd party apps that will do this.

ok thanks DELMER thanks that'll do at least fro a work around..


noonoo.. i'm responsible for about 200 pc's in my job and have 7 here at home.. macs as well.. most of them have at least a 5gig partition for os.. office can be installed to another partition.. usually one that i call 'program files' seperate to the os.. one more for pagefile.. and another for saves whatever they may be.. unfortunately one druken night i decided to re install windows.. and hey what do i find the os sitting on a 2.5gig partition.. whoops.

anyway... ive so much installed on this thing and am so busy that i need a quick way of sorting things.. quick and reliable that is..



and to those of you who can reply only in base.. well its a shame you couldnt answer my question.. quick replies and sharp tounges only prove one thinng.. ignorance..good evening to you

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Originally Posted by dr_jones

ok thanks DELMER thanks that'll do at least fro a work around..


noonoo.. i'm responsible for about 200 pc's in my job and have 7 here at home.. macs as well.. most of them have at least a 5gig partition for os.. office can be installed to another partition.. usually one that i call 'program files' seperate to the os.. one more for pagefile.. and another for saves whatever they may be.. unfortunately one druken night i decided to re install windows.. and hey what do i find the os sitting on a 2.5gig partition.. whoops.

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Hey, I go to reply to your first post, and up pops the Edited version. Well, since you thought twice about us not knowing what to do and offering nothing but workarounds, let's let it go, huh.https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2005/03/1.gif
BTW: the MCSE core you spoke of and the solution it mentioned which you are still working on, I'd be interested in reading about. What you infer is you can enlarge partitions from within Windows itself without an app like Partition Magic. Care to post the MCSE core question/answer you spoke of. Remember, everyday we ALLL learn here, and we tried to help you, and now, you may be able to help us.https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2006/04/1.gif

PS
Happy Birthday delmer_1.https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2006/04/1.gif

I WASNT DIGGIN AT YOU ALL ..SOME OF YOU WERE ACTUALLY REALLY HELPFULL. BUT SOME.. some IVE NOTICED HERE ON THIS FORUM ARE FAR To interested in the look of their own type...

and as for the mcse .. im not talking about doing it all throug th os.. and in fact will use a version of linux that i run from cd witch allows me to work with ntfs partitions without loading windows and subsequently locking key folders.. it all runs from ram as well so no modifications are made to the hard disk drive contents.. the dynamic disk will be mounted to an empty folder from within the os.. ffrom outside of it the files will be copied and the new folder renamed to what the original one was..

analysing the boot process shows the order in which drivers/ and services are stared... and can be arranged accordingly .. if you know how... which i do.. and will allow for dyanmiv disks to be mounted in the correct sequence of things to allow for initial boot from the sytem32 fodler

[I WASNT DIGGIN AT YOU ALL ..SOME OF YOU WERE ACTUALLY REALLY HELPFULL. BUT SOME.. some IVE NOTICED HERE ON THIS FORUM ARE FAR To interested in the look of their own type...

and as for the mcse .. im not talking about doing it all throug th os.. and use a version of linux that i run from cd witch allows me to work with ntfs partitions without loading windows and subsequently locking key folders.. it all runs from ram as well so no modifications are made to the hard disk drive contents.. the dynamic disk will be mounted to an empty folder from within the os.. ffrom outside of it the files will be copied and the new folder renamed to what the original one was..

analysing the boot process shows the order in which drivers/ and services are stared... and can be arranged accordingly .. .. and will allow for dyanmiv disks to be mounted in the correct sequence of things to allow for initial boot from the sytem32 fodler

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Originally Posted by dr_jones

I WASNT DIGGIN AT YOU ALL ..SOME OF YOU WERE ACTUALLY REALLY HELPFULL. BUT SOME.. some IVE NOTICED HERE ON THIS FORUM ARE FAR To interested in the look of their own type...

and as for the mcse .. im not talking about doing it all throug th os.. and in fact will use a version of linux that i run from cd witch allows me to work with ntfs partitions without loading windows and subsequently locking key folders.. it all runs from ram as well so no modifications are made to the hard disk drive contents.. the dynamic disk will be mounted to an empty folder from within the os.. ffrom outside of it the files will be copied and the new folder renamed to what the original one was..

analysing the boot process shows the order in which drivers/ and services are stared... and can be arranged accordingly .. if you know how... which i do.. and will allow for dyanmiv disks to be mounted in the correct sequence of things to allow for initial boot from the sytem32 fodler

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Believe me, I know what it looks like here, in fact that's what got me going, you know: fighting back.https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2005/03/1.gif
But you mentioned the MCSE 2000/2003 talks about doing what you wanted to do, right? What does it say...the question itself? Was this a prep question from the MCSE that asks you to come up with a solution which involves Linux?https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2005/03/1.gif I am really curious about this now. You got this idea of yours from an MCSE exam prep book...so what was the question, and answer if provided?

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Originally Posted by dr_jones

I WASNT DIGGIN AT YOU ALL ..SOME OF YOU WERE ACTUALLY REALLY HELPFULL. BUT SOME.. some IVE NOTICED HERE ON THIS FORUM ARE FAR To interested in the look of their own type...

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I resemble that inference :p ...I think you are really pushing an envelope here. I also think you are full of crap. If you come here asking for free advice on something that is so unconventional as this, feel free to expect some backlash and putdowns. That’s the nature of the beast.

Good luck with your adventure.

ok the question isnt specific to the mcse exams.. but the topic concerning mounting dynamic disks is relevant(theres even questions on it).. and it describes the process of mounting a disk(in this case part of a physical drive) to an empty folder.. in order to add space to a of an unpredictably overly full folder (the mcse uses shared file fodlers as an example). i simply wanted to aply this to a system critical folder(if i could).. . and then as a consequence rearrange the boot process so that windows will be able to read from the mounted drive to access the files it needs from within .. relocating the drivers it needed firstly to another location..

the linux boot cd installs to ram withought physically changing any of the hard disks and gives ntfs volume support.

so using that would allow me to make the changes i needed.

all i needed was a way to increase the size of the system32 folder without having to format , repartition and reinstall.. ive so much software it takes nearly 5 hours to put it all back on.

the rest well... i havent used partition magic for a long time not since xp came along and have never had the software to ghost. although doesnt 2k3 have this as native?
the partition is to small and that was a once only mistake.. i odnt get p'''sed that often.

and Ya_know.. well thanks for the input. (if you can call it that).. what exactly is it thats so unconvential about this problem. its something that microsoft should have been implemented a long time ago it seems.

Ok ... so now you 'upset' everyone, let me just mention that you never used the phrase 'dynamic disks' ... now some of us 'smartarses' who like the look of what we type (or whatever you sweepingly accused us all of) know about things more 'oft' than we let on, as it makes any discussion or problem solving mechanism very unwieldy if you want to bring every aspect in ...

But Oh no you always knew better ... so why flipping ask ? - mounting system folders in seperate partitions other than root is NOT stock advice even with dynamic disks :p ( & I ain't even gonna 'go there', as to why they ain't as 'clever' as they seem ...)

You asked

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all i needed was a way to increase the size of the system32 folder without having to format , repartition and reinstall..

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Ok so use Partition Magic to resize it ... or use ghost to transfer it to another partition of sufficient size - neither of these are MS solutions - just practical ones from folk who do it ! Or make the bloody thing big enough first time !

Billy Boys answer is to do a complete back-up ... create a parallel install in a large enough partition & then restore the back up - seems to me my non MS way is better ;)

so, did you get this working? Also, what linux disc are you using? I have been using Knoppix for a while, which does this, but does not have write ability on NTFS partitions. i have been looking for a bootable CD that has teh ability to write to NTFS partitions, so if you could provide some info, it would be greatly appreciated.

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Originally Posted by delmer_1

so, did you get this working? Also, what linux disc are you using? I have been using Knoppix for a while, which does this, but does not have write ability on NTFS partitions. i have been looking for a bootable CD that has teh ability to write to NTFS partitions, so if you could provide some info, it would be greatly appreciated.

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Errrrrrrr Not being a linux chappie at all (you might better ask this as a seperate question in a/our linux forum) but does any linux incantation write 'correctly' to a ntfs partition ? I don't think so - anyone else ? I know they read but I thought .... Which was part of why I was so scathing earlier about how to fix it

ok after all that it didnt work...and i ended up formating the drive anyway..doh

i used knopix .. eventually but managed to work out that windows wasnt happy with system32 in a dynamic mount before i did.. reinstalled win2k3 on the 3rd drive and did the folder moving from that os .. booted to xp and... cannot find file something or other..

damn windows and damn myself and arse to knopix for no proper ntfs support..

:(

and sorry to any i might have offened

The FIRST thing I ever used Knoppix for, was to rescue files from an NTFS partition, by burning them to a CD using one of the CD Burning utilities in Knoppix.

/rant

I just do not understand how some people get IT jobs. If you were working for me, and formatted MY drive over something as poorly thought out as that, AFTER getting advice on how to fix it properly (Ghost and/or resize partition) you would be looking for a job.

/rant

However, I hope your problem is solved. I support some "unique power users", and while challenging, the rewards are always that I learn different ways of doing things.

.
'''
/rant

I just do not understand how some people get IT jobs. If you were working for me, and formatted MY drive over something as poorly thought out as that, AFTER getting advice on how to fix it properly (Ghost and/or resize partition) you would be looking for a job.''

....well im not and will never be..and if you knew me you'd certainly never doubt my expertese.. we all have off days....






/

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Originally Posted by dr_jones

and if you knew me you'd certainly never doubt my expertese..

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Hard to believe after what we've seen..

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Originally Posted by CeeBee

Hard to believe after what we've seen..

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He's a fart smeller...https://forums.windrivers.com/

Ooop, I meant smart fell’er... :p

gone a little off topic there.... Dr Jones did apologise and if it had worked we would have been standing back in amazement having learnt something.