VMware Communities: Message List - Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

RDPetruska — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:02:02 GMT

Refer to Eric's page for MANY different methods for resizing virtual disks. http://vsphere-land.com/tips-tricks/re-sizing-virtual-disks

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Vimalblog — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:28:18 GMT

can you please send cross the steps or screen shot how to increase the space in c:\ drive by using vmware converator..

can any one help me....

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

gps_guy — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:03:09 GMT

You can't use the "extend" command on a c: (boot) partition directly. You need to boot from another disk first. In the past, I've booted from a Knoppix Live CD and then used qtparted to resize the C: partition. You could use the VMware converter to do a P2V conversion (though the original already a VM) and resize it during conversion.

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Shankariyer — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:56:59 GMT

Screen shot attached.

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Shankariyer — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:54:09 GMT

Awesome help... Thanks much.

One Correction : I've VM's for Windows 2003 and Windows XP, so am trouble shooting
this with XP, while I have the same issue with 2003 at which point I had initiated this
discussion.

I think I'm getting there, except one little problem.

I followed the instruction verbatim...

1. Created the 2nd VMDK file to the size
2. Converted the basic disk to 'dynamic' disk ( C drive that is )
3. The newly added space is showing up as 'unallocated space'

But when I choose 'extend volume' on C drive, it complains

"The selected volume is a System or a Boot disk or was created on a basic disk in an earlier version of windows and cannot be extended"

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Neilly — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:06:30 GMT

I understand that your host os is GNU/Linux (Ubuntu) and that your guest vm OS is Windows 2003 Server. The pointers that I and others have given you will work. Here again is my advice, but worded differently so as to be clearer (hopefully )

A. Your Current Setup
1. Host OS : Ubuntu
2. Physical Disk holding the vmdk file : 21GB total, 14GB used, 6GB free
3. Guest OS : Windows 2003 Server
4. Guest OS virtual disks : 1 virtual disk of 14GB capacity
5. Guest OS virtual disk type : Basic (I am assuming this to be the case)

B. Goals
1. Increase the size/capacity of the Guest OS virtual disk
2. Make all of the increased capacity appear as a single drive C: in the guest OS.

C. Method (my recommendation)
1. DO NOT perform a vmware-vdiskmanager expansion of the vmdk file - you do not have enough free space to do this, so....
2. DO create a second vmdk file and add it to the set of resources available to your guest OS as a second drive. This second drive will be 6GB in capacity, thus equaling the free space available on your host's 21GB drive.
3. Boot up your Windows 2003 guest vm. It will see the normal unchanged drive C: and a second drive that is not formatted or partitioned and has a capacity of 6GB.
4. In your guest vm running Windows 2003 convert your C: drive from a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk. This will let you add the second disk (and a third and fourth and so on) to the C: drive thus expanding the capacity of the C: drive dynamically. This will not create a D: drive nor require managing junction points etc.

If you are unfamiliar with the concepts and procedures of Windows' Basic and Dynamic disks then I suggest you do some Googling

Hope that this is a clearer explanation and gets you what you need.

Cheers,

Ron

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

RDPetruska — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:42:45 GMT

You aren't doing anything wrong - the commands you are using ARE the correct commands. The issue is that the vmware-vdiskmanager utility creates a TEMPORARY virtual disk file(s) when doing any conversion. Therefore, if you are trying to expand a 14G disk to be 20 GB, you need 20 GB of free space DURING the conversion. Afterwards, the files will only take up 20 GB of host disk space.

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Shankariyer — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:34:15 GMT

I'm confused now.

Based on what Ron said

"So the first attempt you did, "-x 5 GB", was incorrect because it says
to increase the current 11GB disk to a 5GB disk. Not going to work.
However the second attempt, "-x 15 GB", is correct but failed because
vmware-vdiskmanager cannot find enough space on the host disk to
perform the expansion. So I still recommend that you either free up a
large chunk of disk space on the host disk or get another disk. And I
still recommed adding the additional space as a second disk rather than
trying to expand the existing vmdk file since you won't need to mess
about with changing the partition table of the guest vm's C: drive (or
does Windows 2003 have that capabiity built into it?)."

So, the size of the disk is 21G, out of which I've used 14G and I've 6G more. All I'm trying to do is increase the 14G to 20G if possible.

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 20GB "Windows XP Professional.vmdk" I was under the impression it'd "increase" the 14G to 20G "not" add 20G more.

Am I wrong ?

If so, how do I add 6G more ?

Thanks much!

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

RDPetruska — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:14:52 GMT

Shankariyer wrote:
I think the df -h was read wronly..

My device is sda14...

size is 21g

used is 14

available is 6.x

In any case, you need at least 20 GB free. Or, if you convert your virtual disk to a 2GB-split type, then less space. However, in order to convert it, you need at least as much free space as the maximum defined size of the current virtual disk.

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Shankariyer — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:56:58 GMT

I think the df -h was read wronly..

My device is sda14...

size is 21g

used is 14

available is 6.x

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

RDPetruska — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:53:25 GMT

You only have 14GB of free space available, and you are asking to create a new virtual disk file(s) of 20 GB in size. 20G>14G, so the error message is correct!

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Shankariyer — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:49:18 GMT

Thank you all for your pointers. Let me explain few things...

I'm on Ubuntu w/VM Workstation, not Windoze

But I think I'm missing something here, as none of these options work..

For one, I do have space to expand the disk...

/utl/vmware/Windows XP Professional$ df -h .

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb14 21G 14G 6.1G 70% /utl

/utl/vmware/Windows XP Professional$ vmware-vdiskmanager -x 20Gb "Windows XP Professional.vmdk"
Using log file /tmp/vmware-root/vdiskmanager.log
Failed to expand the disk 'Windows XP Professional.vmdk': There is not
enough space on the file system for the selected operation (14).

What am I doing wrong ?

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Neilly — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:46:34 GMT

Actually, if the documentation for vmware-vdiskmanager below is correct then it looks like the real problem you have is an incorrectly specified value for the -x parameter:

Increasing the Size of an Existing Virtual Disk
To expand (grow) a virtual disk
Specify size and give the full path to the VMDK, or change directory to its location:

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 80GB mydisk.vmdk

This increases the maximum capacity of the virtual disk to 80GB. Unlike defragmenting and shrinking, you
may increase the size of preallocated virtual disks (flat type 2 or 3).
Virtual Disk Manager expands the virtual disk but does not modify its contents, so the partition information
remains the same. Many operating systems cannot alter partition size after creation, so you might have to
obtain third‐party software, such as Partition Magic or GNU Parted, to do this. Such software allows you to
alter disk partitions so a virtual machine can access the additional disk space.

So the first attempt you did, "-x 5 GB", was incorrect because it says to increase the current 11GB disk to a 5GB disk. Not going to work.
However the second attempt, "-x 15 GB", is correct but failed because vmware-vdiskmanager cannot find enough space on the host disk to perform the expansion. So I still recommend that you either free up a large chunk of disk space on the host disk or get another disk. And I still recommed adding the additional space as a second disk rather than trying to expand the existing vmdk file since you won't need to mess about with changing the partition table of the guest vm's C: drive (or does Windows 2003 have that capabiity built into it?).

Ron

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

continuum — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:21:45 GMT

or first convert to 2gm split format - then in second step expand size.

MAKE SURE YOU DON"T HAVE SNAPSHOTS

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Neilly — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:17:07 GMT

Two things:
1. You can also increase the capacity of your guest by adding a second disk to the vm and then in the guest vm change the C: drive to a dynamic disk and add the second disk to it to expand the capacity of drive C:.
2. It looks like you only have 19 GB of free space on your host disk - maybe vmware cannot expand your existing vmdk because there is not enough contiguous free disk space available on the host? Try freeing up some disk space on your host and see if that helps. Or buy a disk drive.

Ron

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

continuum — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:44:05 GMT

Why doesn't this solve the problem ?

Just move the contents of one large dir to the new disk and create a junction.
Assume C:\programs is almost full ...
Add disk - format it and copy C:\programs\*.* to D:\
Then make junction like this
junction.exe C:\programs D:\

Problem solved - the new disk will appear as C:\programs in explorer

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Shankariyer — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:39:22 GMT

I can, but it doesn't solve the problem of my c:\ being almost full. So is the reason I'm trying to increase the size of it.
I did remove unwanted stuff, but need to increase c:\

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

continuum — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:01:47 GMT

Can't you simply add another disk ?

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Shankariyer — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:55:39 GMT

I'm sorry, I'm coming back to this again, as I still face the same problem.

Any pointers please ?

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Peter_vm — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:08:13 GMT

Can you free up more space temporarily ?

Unable to increase hard-disk space.

Shankariyer — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:42:41 GMT

VM Ware Workstation Version : 6.0.2 build-59824
Host OS : Ubunt 8.x
Guest OS : Windows 2003 Server
Current capacity : 11GB
Intented capacity : 16GB

I get errors in both the cases

$ vmware-vdiskmanager -x 5GB Windows\ Server\ 2003\ SE.vmdk
Using log file /tmp/vmware-shankar/vdiskmanager.log
Failed to expand the disk 'Windows Server 2003 SE.vmdk': One of the parameters supplied is invalid (1).

$ vmware-vdiskmanager -x 15GB Windows\ Server\ 2003\ SE.vmdk
Using log file /tmp/vmware-shankar/vdiskmanager.log
Failed to expand the disk 'Windows Server 2003 SE.vmdk': There is not enough space on the file system for the selected operation (14).

I can understand this as the available space in the disk is 19GB in total.

Please advice as how I can fix this.

Thanks,

Kramer.