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I have a machine with Windows Storage Server 2003 x64 on it. For whatever reason Dell shipped it with a 12GB OS partition and the person who set this up when we got it left it like that and it's since filled up. Since this partition is on the same physical discs as the storage partition we got a new drive to put the OS on. Now that it's reinstalled there's a couple issues at hand.

  1. The new install is on E instead of C
  2. I can't reformat the C partition because it's set as the System drive while E is set as the boot drive

My question is what can I do to fix this?

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  • Good questions, I'd like it answered. System drive letter really is a pain to change if you get it wrong on setup.
    – Massimo
    Aug 20, 2009 at 22:27

5 Answers 5

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Trying to change the system/boot drive letter not recommended, and Microsoft will probably refuse to support you if you try. You may have to bite the bullet and do backup and reinstall.

Here is an article that talks about a procedure under windows xp.

You probably also want to look at kb 223188.

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Turns out my issue on the system drive part was because the storage array was set as the bootable one in the raid card, not the new drive. As for the drive letter renaming...I'm doing a reinstall instead of trying the registry change.

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  • Good idea, considering the fact that you will eventually run into problems down the road if you a.) leave it that way or b.) do the registry change. Better now than later with the reinstall.
    – phuzion
    Aug 21, 2009 at 15:31
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Whip out a copy of the Windows AIK or some other imaging toolkit that's happy to work with servers, grab an image of it, blow away the partitions, recreate them the way you want, and bring the image back down is what I would do.

You'll probably have to do some boot.ini hacking too.

To be honest here, I'm rather puzzled about how you managed to fill the OS partition on storage server...

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    Two words: System Restore Aug 20, 2009 at 21:05
  • I was shocked myself to see the entire drive filled. I think it was also because it was setup as our print server which kept eating up space. Next thing will be to find out how to change where that gets saved to. Aug 20, 2009 at 21:57
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12GB should be suffient for the OS, you should have other drives for your storage. you can move things like the paging file which will be taking about 2gb of it Right click the computer icon, select properties. select advanced, performance options, virtual memory, change the paging file location there.

What type of server is it? does it have any other drive bays? I would suggest leaving your system and boot on the same drive and purchasing some new disks for storage.

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  • It was 4 80GB drives in raid5 which was partitioned into 12GB and 209GB. I don't know why it was bought like this or left like this but now the OS is on its own drive. Aug 21, 2009 at 17:06
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If I was you i would have used Syamntec System Recovery and just moved the old partition to the new disk. The trial is full use for 30 or 60 day.

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