ghosting windows 2003 server to increase hdd space

[anyweb]

I just ghosted my windows 2003 server (40GB) using ghost 8 using disc>disc to an 80GB target hdd, after completion, I then removed the 40gb and booted the 80GB hdd. At the login screen a popup error appeared stating:-

LSASS.EXE - System Error, security accounts manager initialization failed because of the following error: Directory Services cannot start. Error status 0xc00002e1.

 

Please click OK to shutdown this system and reboot into directory services restore mode, check the event log for more detailed information.

 

Pressing OK and booting into directory services restore mode (press F8 at boot time and select it) boots Windows 2003 into safe mode, but as soon as you login, it logs out again. Very useful indeed (not). I guess I forgot to logon using the directory restore mode password, either way Microsoft recommends the following as a fix > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258062

 

however, I found a much quicker and easier fix.

 

Simply power off, insert the original hdd and boot up Ghost. In ghost options make sure to select the following option

 

'-ID' copy entire disk including unpartitioned space' (image disk).

 

I selected that option and ghosted disc>disc again, this time when all was done I could boot no problem into Windows 2003 with my new bigger hdd, and I now had a new unpartitioned 40gb of free space, marvellous. I chose to format that as another primary partition and will proceed to free up space on the other 3 partitions by moving data to the new partition.

 

cheers

anyweb

[SandyLee]

If you format the drive, all the data on the drive will lost.

 

There is a safe and easy way for you to upgrade the disk to a larger one and get a larger server partition. Just ghost to the larger disk and then increase the disk to the size that you want. Here is a detailed solution for your problem:

[anyweb]

if you re-read the post you'll see there is no data on the formatted part of the disc anyway, so no data to lose