I need to free up space on a windows nt4.0 NTFS partition to install windows 2003

I will do that now thanks

It keeps telling me Primary Domain Controller should be upgraded first.  But I can't upgrade my PDC because it has 198mb of ram and is consistently being used, and if it crashes I'm done.

Sorry, I thought you knew - you HAVE to upgrade the PDC first.  There is no option in this.  You CAN make the BDC you're upgrading the PDC by transfering it using Server Manager.  But before doing that, I HIGHLY recommend first making another BDC (temporarily, out of another system by installing NT4 on it fresh) then taking it off the network.  While I have NEVER seen or heard of an instance where the upgrade failed and killed a network, I'm sure it COULD happen and if you have a BDC you pulled offline (made as a temporary backup), then if and when this happened, you could simply but that BDC back on the network and make it the PDC and recover your network.

But I take it the RAM part worked - the upgrade is proceeding?

Would be better if you read up on migrating to Active Directory - If you stay in mixed mode (the default mode when it's installed as an upgrade) most things should still work the same, but you really should understand the importance of DNS, FSMO roles and the GC.  And if you don't know what any or all of these are, then you REALLY need to read up on things first.

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Upgrading-Windows-NT-2000-Windows-2003-Part1.html
http://whitepapers.businessweek.com/detail/RES/1091470637_401.html

I like installing on new drive, or at least after a format - nice and cleaned.

In addition to normal temporary files, look for unnecessary directories you can wipe, old programs in control panel, and use explorer to identify the longest files.

leew > There are tools to extend partitions, but generally I do not consider this a good idea as I simply don't trust them to keep my file system from getting corrupt.

:-))

Agreeing. but for "second page file on another physical disk" with NT I thought I could put all on d:.

Also, use the other drive for some special directories, one good candidate is \temp. Get that off of the OS' HD.

Yes, you can put it all on D (or another physical drive).  I tend to make 2-3 pagefiles and run them off different physical drives.  Windows is SUPPOSED to gauge usage of the disk and use the page file on the least used disk.

The process isn't upgrading because of the PDC not being upgraded. I tried to upgrade the PDC awhile ago and did the upgrade check, I received the same error, there wasn't enough hard drive space.  Leew, the links are great and I am going to read them. Thanks.

Assuming your users are connecting to the PDC via network share or mapped drive...  take your PDC offline (for a couple minutes), promote your BDC to a PDC, the demote your PDC to a BDC and bring it back online again, upgrade the BDC to Win2k3. Once completed upgrade your PDC (now a BDC) to Win2k3 and reverse the process of of promoting and demoting your BDC/PDC to get each back to the designation you wanted them.

Thank you all for your help. Isn't the BDC supposed to be an exact copy of the PDC?   My PDC has shares on it which my BDC does not have, how can I replicate the contents on my PDC to BDC? I think once I do this process I can try to demote my PDC to
BDC and pull it offline to upgrade it while not interrupting my users from accessing their data. They'd go crazy and my phone will NEVER stop ringing.
Thank you so much.

No, the BDC is not supposed to be an exact copy of the PDC on the whole.  It is a read-only copy of the PDC's accounts database and that's it.  Anything else you chose to run on it, etc is your business.  Shares don't come into play.

If you promote the BDC to PDC, you can leave the CURRENT PDC as the BDC in an Active Directory domain - it will still perform authentication for you PROVIDED YOU DO NOT UPGRADE THE DOMAIN TO NATIVE MODE.  You will not be able to add accounts on that system.

Once you have active directory installed, you can take your time migrating the shares, etc off the original PDC.

The PDC & BDC will be the same for user rights and profiles (obviously) as far as actual file and folder contents go, it depends on your environement. Most of the companies and offices I have worked with have not kept both of them 100% the same. The only instances I have worked with where they are 100% the same is where the location per contract (typically government contract) where 100% system up-time is 99.99999% or greater.

If you have a need for both to be identical then you can still get around this by sync'ing drive contents before doing the promotion/demotion, then perform the upgrade. The sync the drive contents again before upgrading the second and again when that is done after promoting/demoting back again.

For users shares, if you are using login profiles just change the path to the serve that will be online before taking one offline for the upgrade.

For example...
User A has a network drive \\BDC\usera
User B has a network drive \\PDC\userb

Copy the drive contents of the PDC to the BDC (if not yet the same) change the login profile to point to the BDC instead for this user. Do this for all users pointing to the PDC then take it offline. When users log back in then they will be connected to the BDC instead and will not know the difference. For obvious reasons it is best to do this after hours anyways when there are the fewest users online, when users start to login this demotion/promotion should be transparent.

Thanks folks, I purchased a copy of partition commander, I tested it on my bdc to see if I could copy my c: partition and then make it larger than 2GB and it works fine, except that my data drive on my PDC died, Maxtor drive<clicking noise>, I sent it to ECO Data recovery and they couldn't fix it,.They purchased the same drive and swapped parts in the clean room and the clicking noise remains.  I tried to recovery from my backup drives and they weren't backing up properly. Does anyone know if there is a glimmer of hope for me on this drive? Another Company maybe?
Thanks

If you haven't tried the freezer trick yet, than its worth a shot. Its only about 50/50 chance it will work but I have had success (as recent as last month). Try putting the drive in the freezer for 30 minutes to start with and if still nothing then put it in the freezer over night. When you take it out of the freezer be sure to put it in the server ASAP so that its still very cold. May be able to power up the drive long enough to get data off it.

You're dead serious aren't you?!  I have never hear of such a thing but I guess it's worth a try being that it's next stop is ONTRACK.  Thanks and I wil  l keep you posted.

Yes, I'm very serious and have had success with this method. Usually once the harddrive heats up again it dies so once you take it out of the freezer put it in the server as quickly as possible (or slave it off of another PC if the PDC is not convenient to a freezer)

rayrivera > You're dead serious aren't you?!  [freezer]

I would not, unless no alternative. I will validate however, that the trick has been mentioned in the hardware TA more than once by those warranting respect for other comments. They probably gave it >50% chance. My own suspicion is that it is dependent upon MFR. As I recollect, the technique is supposed to include wrapping well in plastic, at least to deter moisture effect. Having heard many people describe the hammer trick - banging the HD corner against something hard, (a specific version of old laptop), i try to remain an open minded skeptic. Come to think of it, I do still have a 'dead' HD laying around I decided to give up on (not a lot of important data), maybe I'll give that one a whirl as well.

> or slave it off of another

that sounds like the better shot

Sorry I haven't kept up with this thread. Usually there are several other debugging methods to got through. In old days, there'd be bugs about a barrier such as 2GB. One system would write off the end of the disk and over the beginning (leaving the middle part).

For NT, I once had the boot die, and it stayed dead in different ways until I tried a trick to restore the boot files, trying to clean/redo the beginning sectors. PMQ was among those that failed. The one that worked... <darn> I forget again, I guess it never got very popular. But had you yet tried as a slave? Since mine would let me at the filesystem, but wouldn't boot, that's why I tried to focus on the redo of the boot area.

[why can't low-level HW repair stop clicking? Hmm, try HW TA here]

btw, I am also a disbeliever in windows being multifaceted. I am more a believer in dedicating machines to applications, not allowing one to run multiple applications by itself. Any one can then fail and bring down the others. As such, outside of lab, I would not be adding things (that take up space) to a PDC. Users can even share files without a PDC BTW.