Something that's not very well known is that under certain circumstances you can extend basic disks on Windows Server 2003. Normally you would need to convert NTFS volumes from basic to dynamic if you need to extend them (i.e. to make near-full volumes larger) but if you are using a hardware RAID 5 container that supports being able to add space to the container, then you can use the diskpart.exe command to extend the volume even if it's basic. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590 for more details concerning this.

***

Mitch Tulloch is lead author for the Windows Vista Resource Kit from Microsoft Press, which is THE book for IT pros who want to deploy, maintain and support Windows Vista in mid- and large-sized network environments. Mitch is also the author of Introducing Windows Server 2008, the first book from Microsoft Press about the exciting new server platform. For more information on these and other books written by Mitch, see www.mtit.com.