Extending NTFS volume fails but appears to be successful

When you try to extend an NTFS file system volume on a basic disk, or when you try to extend a dynamic NTFS volume, the operation is not successful. In Disk Management, the partition appears to be extended and appears to use the additional free space, showing that the volume was successfully spanned across disks. However, the NTFS on that volume is still the original size that it was before the extension. In My Computer, the properties of the volume show that the volume is the same size that it was before the extension. If you run Chkdsk on the NTFS volume, it reports the volume size that existed before you tried to perform the extension.

This problem may also occur if you use the unattended parameter extendoempartition=1 during an unattended Windows setup and the boot disk is larger than approximately 200 gigabytes (GB). Setup successfully extends the partition but fails "silently" to increase the NTFS. After Setup has completed, the system volume properties as shown in My Computer show that the volume is the same size as it was before the installation.

This problem may occur when the NTFS driver runs out of resources when it tries to extend the volume on a very large disk.

Note The size of the disk can vary. The failure depends on the amount of physical memory that is installed on the computer at the time of the extension or the unattended Windows installation.

To resolve this issue, see the section that applies to your operating system to obtain the fix.

Information about this fix

• This fix will not correct an already extended partition whose volume size is inaccurately reported. This hotfix is preventive in nature and must be installed before you extend the volume. To correct the volume size if this problem has already occurred, contact Microsoft Product Support Services.
• To prevent this problem from occurring during an unattended installation, the installation media or the share point where setup is performed must contain this hotfix.

Service pack information

Microsoft Windows XP

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft Windows 2000

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language.

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

To work around this problem during an unattended setup if you do not have the hotfix, instead of using the extendoempartition=1 parameter to use all the disk space, you can specify the additional amount of disk space to use for the extension by using the following parameter, where nn is the number of megabytes (MB) to add to the existing partition:Note To use only a portion of the free space, the entry must contain the number of megabytes that you want to increase the existing partition by. If you currently have a 4 GB boot partition and you want to increase the size of the partition by 1 GB, use the value 1024. If you set a value for which there is not sufficient free space, the upgrade process finishes, but the expansion of the partition does not occur.

By specifying a smaller size, you can extend the volume during a new unattended installation.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section of this article. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: