This is not a problem with Windows 2008s native “Extend Volume” function. However, for Windows 2003 boxes, I’ve been using Dell ExtPart to extend these partitions. This process can be done on the fly with no down time. (Although, I typically perform a reboot to confirm it comes back up)
Dell Extpart can be located here: http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/DriverDetails?DriverId=R64398&FileId=2731129714&DriverName=Dell%20Basic%20Disk%20Expansion%2C%20v.1.0.4%2C%20A01
Confirm you have a good backup prior to proceeding!
Steps:
1. Confirm you have enough disk space to accommodate the increase in disk size in your datastore. Increase the size of the hard drive you wish to extend from the vSphere Client.
2. Copy extpart.exe. to the temp directory. Extract.
3. Confirm that the newly allocated space is available in Disk Management.
4. From the command prompt, run extpart.exe. Select the volume you wish to extend, and the size you wish to increase it by. In this example we're extending the drive by 5GB (5x1024 = 5120)
6. Reboot the server to confirm that it comes back up clean.
That's IT!
