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On Windows Server 2003, we started a job to shrink a an overly large partition. This shrinking is already taking 9 hours (no errors thrown), but now it is in the middle of our peak traffic time in the U.S. so we need to either abort the re-partitioning or access certain data to restore it to another server.

How can I access data on other partitions (not the partition that is shrinking) while this shrinking process is going on?

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  • How are you performing this "shrink"?
    – joeqwerty
    Sep 6, 2013 at 15:20
  • We're using the AOMEI Partition Assistant
    – Spike
    Sep 6, 2013 at 15:24
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    You used a freeware tool to shrink a partition on a production server? shudder
    – DanBig
    Sep 6, 2013 at 15:42
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    @DanBig agreed. I didn't know one of my guys did this last night until I woke up to find the error logs... :(
    – Spike
    Sep 6, 2013 at 15:44

2 Answers 2

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Oh gosh - don't even think about it, please. If it's still running, with no errors then you have no choice but to wait. Doing anything else stands a high chance of killing the task and leaving you with a inconsistent file system.

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  • Thanks for the note about not aborting the process. Does your comment also refer to not attempting to access the data on other partitions?
    – Spike
    Sep 6, 2013 at 15:25
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    @Spike If you can access the data natively through whatever tool is running the 'shrink' (I.e., if it's a Linux boot CD or something) then you should be safe. However, if not, then I can't think of any safe options
    – Dan
    Sep 6, 2013 at 15:26
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Using data on other partitions should be save if this partition tool (i'm not familiar with this one) works from within Windows.
If the other partition is on the same disk/raid-set things will be VERY slow though, and will also slow down the resize itself.
I would strongly recommend to keep access to the other partitions as light/minimal as possible. You don't want Windows to be so busy with the other data-transfers that it causes time-outs on the resize.

And (if you run one on the server) please temporarily STOP the antivirus. You don't want it to check every bit that gets reshuffled during the resize.

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  • It required a reboot to work and therefore we are not already within a working windows instance. So I'm not sure how to access the other partitions on the drive... The other partitions with data we need are also on the same physical drive unfortunately.
    – Spike
    Sep 6, 2013 at 15:58
  • Unfortunately then, that data is going to be inaccessible until the shrink is done.
    – joeqwerty
    Sep 6, 2013 at 16:07

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