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77 Replies Last post: Oct 15, 2009 6:01 PM by mrdelurk

Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions

Jul 8, 2007 1:45 PM

Pat Lee 1,186 posts since
Jan 3, 2007 VMware

There have been a number of questions on how to resize virtual disks and confusion around how this works with regards to Windows partitions.

While the vdiskmanager tools to resize the virtual disks are pretty quick, you still have to use third party tools to get to the desired end point of a larger Windows system virtual disk or actually partition in this case.

To make it easier for people to resize their virtual drives and operating system partition, I took some of my fleeting personal time to write this overview that includes all the steps required to resize a virtual disk with vdiskmanager GUI and then resize the partition with the open source GParted Live CD (ISO).

LEGAL STUFF
This is my personal document and not supported in any way by VMware. Also, I take no responsibility for any of the tools recommended or issues in my write up.

As always, make a backup of your virtual disk before performing resizing your disk as actions like these that could make your virtual machine unbootable. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Hope this is helpful to folks. Any and all feedback is welcome.

Pat

Attachments:

Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests.pdf (1.5 MB)

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Jul 8, 2007 2:31 PM

Obeechi 437 posts since
Jan 25, 2007

Well, the bit about creating a second disk and using it just for Data never occured to me... I suppose that could be on an external drive... of course you could also move the Data to an external drive formated non-virtually in NTFS... and then what about using MacDrive to save this same data to an HFS+ partition.. would that mean you wouldn't have to set aside a virtual disk area within the same HFS+ partition... but someone here was concerned about using MacDrive in a Virtual environment... gee and I just forked over money for it thinking I would need it... (so does this mean I should only use MacDrive in a native environment, which I really don't plan on using anymore... )

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Jul 19, 2007 1:00 PM

nshirey 7 posts since
Jul 19, 2007

This is what I was looking for, thank you.

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Aug 13, 2007 1:36 AM

in response to: nshirey

Obeechi 437 posts since
Jan 25, 2007

I used this guide to resize my disk and then my partition, and I used gparted... and used my Vista installation disk afterwards to make repairs... then... I did it again... only this time, I didn't use gparted, but instead just used vdiskmanager to expand my disk while the VM was shut down totally, and Fusion was quit, ... then booted to Vista VM and used Vista's Computer Management snap in to resize (expand) the partition... both steps were ultra quick..

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructio Aug 27, 2007 10:30 AM

av_boy 1 posts since
Feb 12, 2007

This seems like a very involved process...

I just switched to VMWare from parallels and I am needing to resize a disk.

Will someone explain to me why the way I did it in parallels wouldnt work for vmware?

Basically what I would do is use the disk tool to make the disk bigger.
Mount the disk to "a different vm with windows" (not the boot disk)
Boot to the "other windows vm" and Use the windows partition manager to expand the disk.

Thanks!

-sean

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructio Aug 27, 2007 10:39 AM

in response to: av_boy

RDPetruska 15,853 posts since
Jan 11, 2005 Moderator

That process will work too. It requires another Windows virtual machine, which some users may not have... and it requires a version of Windows new enough to contain the DiskPart utility.

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructio Sep 12, 2007 4:57 PM

in response to: RDPetruska

Hux 4 posts since
Dec 25, 2006

They need a Mac OS gui or Linux tool.

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Sep 30, 2007 2:23 PM

hejish 21 posts since
Mar 21, 2006

The PDF needs new links - the old links to vmware sites for the software do not work

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Sep 30, 2007 4:50 PM

in response to: hejish

rcardona2k 5,121 posts since
Oct 20, 2005

Hmm... they worked for me:

1) Download the latest viskdiskmanager GUI
New version: 0.2007.06.18

2) Download the latest VMX Extras
VMX Extras

3) Download the latest Gparted Live CD disk image (ISO)
GParted LiveCD

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Oct 3, 2007 11:58 AM

Studio7Media 2 posts since
Oct 3, 2007

Hi All,

If you have Ghost (I use 2003), you can easily resize your drive without the risk to your data:

note: I am using VMWare Fusion 1.0 / resized from 5gb to 20gb

Create/Add a second Virtual Drive to your machine that will represent your desired larger HD size.
Boot Virtual Machine so that the OS recogizes the second drive. Restart
Go into VM BIOS by pressing F2, and change your default boot order: CDROM, Floppy (if you want), HD.
Boot with Ghost 2003 or older , and clone drive
Boot VM with new Virtual HD.

In my case I created a new virtual machine (because I also wanted to upgrade from XP Home to Pro); in the VM wizard, I manually selected the newly created vitural drive and booted. My new OS drive was now 20gb's instead of 5gb's. All this worked great, and only took about 10 minutes!

LEGAL STUFF (as mentioned by Pat Lee)

This is my personal document and not supported in any way by VMware.
Also, I take no responsibility for any of the tools recommended or
issues in my write up.

As always, make a backup of your virtual disk before performing
resizing your disk as actions like these that could make your virtual
machine unbootable. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Hope this is helpful to folks. Any and all feedback is welcome.

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Oct 23, 2007 2:31 AM

zyx100 45 posts since
Aug 8, 2007

here is a good article which explaines a different method to change Virtual Disk size:

http://www.vmweekly.com/articles/expanding_the_virtual_disk_size_in_4_steps/1/

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Oct 23, 2007 5:21 AM

in response to: zyx100

etung 11,030 posts since
Oct 15, 2006 VMware

here is a good article which explaines a different method to change Virtual Disk size:

Actually, it's the same technique. Pat's detailed instructions comprise steps 3b and 4 of your link, except Pat used a GUI instead of the shell, and a gparted ISO instead of diskpart from a backup Windows VM.

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Oct 23, 2007 5:26 AM

in response to: zyx100

rcardona2k 5,121 posts since
Oct 20, 2005

FWIW, many of the steps in that article do not apply on a OS X (nearly steps 1 - 3a). But it does encourage making a backup which can't be stressed enough. It also discusses deleting snapshots which may not be obvious for expanding base disks. Using diskpart is an alternative, but for me it has not been as convenient as booting into gparted.

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Nov 14, 2007 5:55 AM

clive_long 45 posts since
Jan 13, 2007

Hi,

Thanks for these instructions. I increased the disk size by a slight variation on the given instructions, but essentially it is the same technique in the detailed instructions given. The "challenge" is to have any easy-to-use (that means graphical for me) application to resize the disk partition, but one cannot resize active/mounted partitions. So the idea is to have the disk resized by an environment where the virtual disk is not mounted/active. In the instructions given, that is booting GParted , in my notes that is run GParted in a "slave" Linux guest - that's the only variation in approach.

Host: Linux with disk space under the control of lvm (Logical Volume Manager)

Guest 1: Win XP << This has drive C: that needs to be increased in size

Guest 2: Linux

1. Backup on Linux host the virtual disk to be increased, in my case the vmdk assigned to Win XP guest 1. This is made easy by VM because all the relevant files are in one directory.

2. Run vmware-vdiskmanager in Linux host and increase size of virtual disk (see User Guide for syntax and examples)

3. Attach, as a new disk drive, the vmdk file that contains the Win XP C: drive to Linux guest 2 VM. Start the Linux guest 2 and install GParted.

4. Start GParted in Linux Guest 2. In GParted go to menu (GParted > Devices) and change the "device" to one of the /dev/sdx options. It should be apparent from the "Flags" which is the correct device. In my case it was "boot". Set up the partition resize (as in the detailed written instructions) and run it.

5. Stop the Linux Guest 2 and restart Win XP guest 1. As in detailed instructions, Windows checks the partition then starts. The C: drive is resized.

Notes

GParted cannot resize lvm (Logical Volume Manager) partitions - so can't be used to increase size of my host partitions. But maybe there are tools to resize lvms. I need to look into that.

For me, the really clever thing about the technique that has been given in the original posting, is that although the host uses lvm, and the virtual disk is actually a vmdk file on the host, within either vm, the file appears as a boot partition or extended or logical partition and GParted can do its resizing work on it in the guest.

Reply Re: Resizing a Virtual Disk for Windows Guests with Step by Step Instructions Dec 8, 2007 4:22 PM

in response to: clive_long

damax99 11 posts since
Dec 8, 2007

I'd like to a pass along a problem I had with with step 12 of Pat's procedure and how I was able to extend the partition by using Vista's Disk Management function. It appears to work but I welcome thoughts from others on if I may have another problem that I don't know about. I should also say that I'm new to Mac OS X and am using an iMac.

I successfully got through steps 1-11 in my attempt to extend my virtual hard disk from 20GB to 40GB. My problem began on step 12 when I couldn't get F2 to startup the BIOS setup program. Every time I tried to press F2 it just increased the screen brightness screen and after the BIOS delay, Vista would start up. Perhaps there's something different I need to do to get the BIOS setup to start.

After shutting down Vista and trying step 12 several times, I went into Vista's Computer Management / Disk Management and could see that I had 20GB allocated and the new 20GB Unallocated. I performed the Extend a Volume action (More Actions / All Tasks / Extend a Volume) entered the remaining amount as displayed (about 20K MB) and then saved it. The volume now appeared as 40GB in Disk Management and shows the full 40GB in other places.

In short, it seems to have worked but I'm a bit concerned because it appears that this thread recommended using another VM instance of XP or Vista to change the partition. I used the active VM to make the change.

Any thoughts are welcome on if there might be an issue with what I did and also on why I couldn't get F2 to startup the BIOS setup.
Thanks

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