12 Dec

BDEdrive on Windows Server 2008 R2

Posted by brian.wuchner in Uncategorized |

In one vSphere environment I support we do not use templates to deploy virtual machines. Instead, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is used. This allows both physical and virtual servers to be created using the same process and improves overall standardization of the customers network.

After several dozen Windows 2008 R2 servers had been deployed, we realized that a BDEDrive partition had been created on the boot partition. This partition was in the way and prevented the C: drive from being extended. Here are steps to resolve this issue on existing servers

At a command prompt run: 

bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

After the command completes, right click the c: partition in Disk Management and set it as active. Reboot the server, delete the BDEdrive partition and extend the C: drive…

More importantly, this issue needed addressed on future builds to allow more flexible growth of the C: drive (without the required reboot from above). After a quick Google, I found this article: social.technet.microsoft.com… that describes adding the following text:

DoNotCreateExtraPartition=YES

to the CustomSettings.ini file. As described in the article, the cAsE of the DoNotCreateExtraPartition=YES attribute is important. After our deployment configuration management team added this attribute the BDEdrive partition stopped appearing on new builds.

21 Sep

ESXiBackup Folder Cleanup

Posted by brian.wuchner in Uncategorized |

In an earlier post Directory partition has not been backed up [DC=virtualcenter,DC=vmware,DC=int] I suggested a method to backup the VMwareVCMSDS ADAM database. As Joern posted in a comment, this solution could fill up your D: drive. The following code should help cleanup the ESXiBackup folder and only keep one month worth of history. You can append this to the previous script or schedule it as a separate task.

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$vcenter = "vcenter.host.name" #This variable may already be defined if you append the previous script.
#http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176988.aspx
foreach ($i in Get-ChildItem D:\ESXiBackup\$vcenter)
{
    if ($i.CreationTime -lt ($(Get-Date).AddMonths(-1)))
    {
        Remove-Item $i.FullName -recurse -force -confirm:$false -whatif
    }
}

You’ll want to remove the “-whatif” once you see that the above script is what you want to do :)

15 Dec

Active Directory Management with Active Administrator

Posted by brian.wuchner in Uncategorized |

I had a need the other day to restore a deleted OU from a Windows 2003 Active Directory.  This used to be such a big deal; requiring the AD, Server and Backup guys all working together.  Authoritative restores are such a pain in the rear, but Active Administrator by Scriptlogic has made this a non-issue.  We can pick an OU from one of the scheduled backups and re-animate the object with ease.  It almost makes you want to delete stuff just so you can restore it.

The product is a little pricey, but it only takes one or two restores for it to pay for itself.  I would highly recommend this product to anyone responsible for managing active directory.

Here is a link to a case study I was interviewed for several months ago:

http://www.scriptlogic.com/CaseStudies/Download/state-of-indiana-case-study.pdf

24 Oct

New web site!

Posted by brian.wuchner in Uncategorized |

Good morning,

If you are reading this, you’ve obviously found my new blog.  I’ve created this site to discuss random topics in virtualization and systems administration.  Over the next couple of days I plan on consolidating a few failed attempts at creating such a site into this new structure.

If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to post them.

Thanks,
Brian Wuchner