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1 2 Previous Next 20 Replies Last post: Jun 19, 2009 6:02 AM by RDPetruska  

Unable to increase hard-disk space. posted: Aug 2, 2008 7:42 PM

Click to view Shankariyer's profile Novice 14 posts since
Jun 29, 2008
  • 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.

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

1. Aug 2, 2008 9:08 PM in response to: Shankariyer
Click to view Peter_vm's profile Guru 9,058 posts since
Feb 1, 2006
Can you free up more space temporarily ?

Re: Unable to increase hard-disk space.

3. Oct 16, 2008 7:01 AM in response to: Shankariyer
Click to view continuum's profile Guru 12,680 posts since
Dec 18, 2003
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.

5. Oct 16, 2008 11:44 AM in response to: Shankariyer
Click to view continuum's profile Guru 12,680 posts since
Dec 18, 2003
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.

6. Oct 16, 2008 2:17 PM in response to: continuum
Click to view Neilly's profile Novice 31 posts since
Apr 5, 2007
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.

7. Oct 16, 2008 2:21 PM in response to: Neilly
Click to view continuum's profile Guru 12,680 posts since
Dec 18, 2003

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.

8. Oct 16, 2008 2:46 PM in response to: Neilly
Click to view Neilly's profile Novice 31 posts since
Apr 5, 2007
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.

10. Oct 17, 2008 9:53 AM in response to: Shankariyer
Click to view RDPetruska's profile Guru 15,877 posts since
Jan 11, 2005
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.

12. Oct 17, 2008 10:14 AM in response to: Shankariyer
Click to view RDPetruska's profile Guru 15,877 posts since
Jan 11, 2005
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.

14. Oct 17, 2008 10:42 AM in response to: Shankariyer
Click to view RDPetruska's profile Guru 15,877 posts since
Jan 11, 2005
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.

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