15 GB discrepancy between Disk 2 and E: in Disk Management

Question

I have a VM running Server 2003 R2 running in ESXi 5.0. Like other VMs, I have extended this VM's disks and partitions on multiple occassions. Recently I added 15 GB to a disk and I was able to extend the disk's size but the added capacity did not "make its way" to the drive itself.

In the screenshot you can see that Disk 2 does not have any unallocated space but the drive itself (E:) is still at 90 GB, not 105 GB.

The drive does not appear to have any performance issues and I have not had any problems with corrupted storage.

Disk Management screenshot

Run `chkdsk /x E:` and see if that resolves it. You've got something borked. — Chris S, Jun 24 '13 at 16:44
I should have started with "I hope you've got real backups and not just that drive, as I strongly suspect something is not right and who knows what else might be wrong with that disk". — Chris S, Jun 24 '13 at 17:30

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 24 '13 at 16:51

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I took a chance and just added another 1GB to the disk and extended it again. The final capacity was 106 GB which means it, for some reason, included the previously missing 15 GB as well.

answered Jun 24 '13 at 16:51

Chris76786777

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That has to do with Windows' handling of increasing space ...as in, it doesn't like it. – Nathan C Jun 24 '13 at 18:40
This is the first time I've encountered it but, admittedly, I prefer to work with newer versions of Windows Server – Chris76786777 Jun 25 '13 at 22:05

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 24 '13 at 17:08

Have you checked to see if Volume Shadow Copy is on on that drive? The amount used by shadow copies doesn't show as available space. If you right-click on the drive in explorer and choose the Shadow Copy tab, it'll show you how much space Shadow Copies are using.

Also, sometimes Shadow Copies will take up disk space despite being disabled (I've experienced this). If so, you could set the maximum Shadow Copy space used to be a relatively small amount. Depending on what's on that drive, though, you might want to leave Shadow Copies on.

Thank you but I was able to resolve the issue by adding even more storage to the disk and extending the volume again. — Chris76786777, Jun 24 '13 at 18:33

15 GB discrepancy between Disk 2 and E: in Disk Management

2 Answers2