Resizing partition with Windows 7 image

[Edmond Lo]

Hi there,

Not sure if this topic has been touched on before.

We create Windows 7 image and use Fog to depoly it. Our Windows 7 image contains 4 partitions: the 100MB partition, the Windows 7 OS partition, then a EXT3 Linux partition (for doing remote linux) and a forth NTFS Windows partition for various Windows apps to us.

So when we upload the image, we need to choose Multiple Partitions:Not resizable option for our image.

That is fine when all machines have the same drive sizes (say 250GB). When we start getting newer machines with bigger drive, that becomes a problem as it will resulted in unallocated space on the disk.

I know we can’t get Fog to resize the partition, but are there any workarounds or other third party tools to expand the various partitions please? We are trying to not create multiple images for different drive sizes (160GB, 250GB, 320GB, 500GB, 1TB).

Thanks,

Edmond.

[Raff]

You could use the script file c:\windows\setup\scripts\setupcomplete.cmd to call the windows diskpart.exe utility to extend the volume.

[Stephen Perkins]

If you are syspreping your windows partition in the XML file you can set it to expand disk to full. That is what we do for our images which only contains one image. The Settings Pass “specialize” then
<ExtendOSPartition>
<Extend>true</Extend>
</ExtendOSPartition>
Hope that helps others

[dugjones]

Thanks Stephen, I just used your technique and it worked great. I had tried scripting it but the scripts apparently wouldn’t work probably due to permissions.

[The Dealman]

[quote=“Stephen Perkins, post: 1332, member: 501”]If you are syspreping your windows partition in the XML file you can set it to expand disk to full. That is what we do for our images which only contains one image. The Settings Pass “specialize” then
<ExtendOSPartition>
<Extend>true</Extend>
</ExtendOSPartition>
Hope that helps others :)[/quote]

Where do you place this in the unattend.xml file? Can you post yours so we can see what it looks like?

[mr626]

[quote=“Stephen Perkins, post: 1332, member: 501”]If you are syspreping your windows partition in the XML file you can set it to expand disk to full. That is what we do for our images which only contains one image. The Settings Pass “specialize” then
<ExtendOSPartition>
<Extend>true</Extend>
</ExtendOSPartition>
Hope that helps others :)[/quote]

Many thanks, I can confirm that this works. Here’s another reference:

[url]http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766473(v=ws.10).aspx[/url]

I didn’t have any luck manually entering it in to my unattend.xml so I ended up using the Windows System Image Manager to open the xml and add it that way (I’m sure you can add it manually, but I must have been doing something wrong).

Anyhow, here’s an extract from my unattend.xml with the relevant info:

[CODE]
<settings pass=“specialize”>
<component name=“Microsoft-Windows-Deployment” processorArchitecture=“x86” publicKeyToken=“31bf3856ad364e35” language=“neutral” versionScope=“nonSxS” xmlns:wcm=“http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State” xmlns:xsi=“http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”>
<RunSynchronous>
<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action=“add”>
<Order>1</Order>
<Path>net user administrator /active:yes</Path>
</RunSynchronousCommand>
</RunSynchronous>
<ExtendOSPartition>
<Extend>true</Extend>
</ExtendOSPartition>
</component>
[/CODE]

[The Dealman]

[quote=“mr626, post: 1937, member: 523”]Many thanks, I can confirm that this works. Here’s another reference:

[URL=‘http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766473(v=ws.10).aspx’]http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766473(v=ws.10).aspx[/URL]

I didn’t have any luck manually entering it in to my unattend.xml so I ended up using the Windows System Image Manager to open the xml and add it that way (I’m sure you can add it manually, but I must have been doing something wrong).

Anyhow, here’s an extract from my unattend.xml with the relevant info:

[CODE]
<settings pass=“specialize”>
<component name=“Microsoft-Windows-Deployment” processorArchitecture=“x86” publicKeyToken=“31bf3856ad364e35” language=“neutral” versionScope=“nonSxS” xmlns:wcm=“http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State” xmlns:xsi=“http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”>
<RunSynchronous>
<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action=“add”>
<Order>1</Order>
<Path>net user administrator /active:yes</Path>
</RunSynchronousCommand>
</RunSynchronous>
<ExtendOSPartition>
<Extend>true</Extend>
</ExtendOSPartition>
</component>
[/CODE][/quote]

Can you post the whole thing?

[mr626]

I’d rather not- it contains a lot of things like server names, ip addresses etc that relate to my organisation and it would take me ages to strip them all out. Sorry.

What I’ve already posted should be plenty to go on- it contains all the relevant information. You can see that in my configuration, the extendospartition happens during the ‘specialize’ pass, but from what I understand it can be run in some of the other passes too if for some reason that suited you better.

The technet link I posted mentions the component that contains the setting in Windows System Image Manager, which allows you to add the extendosparition to your unattend.xml