Resize hard drives over VPN

[hypercat]

I have a requirement to increase the size of the hard drive partitions on one of my VMs, which I was planning to do using the Standalone Converter.  This happens to be a site where the VM is the only server on-site (SBS 2003), and I was hoping to be able to do this over a VPN connection rather than having to travel to the site.  However, I'm reconsidering since I have a feeling that it might not work in my circumstances. Would it even be possible to do this? Does the process of resizing the disk make the VM inaccessible? If so, since the server itself is running the VPN software, I would assume that running the disk resizing process would disconnect my VPN connection.

[Troy_Clavell]

you shouldn't have to use converter to increase the size of a HDD unless you have as single HDD with multiple partitions.  You can commit any snapshots, increase the HDD size in the vSphere Client, then use something like extpart

Or if this is an non C: Drive, just use diskpart and extend.

[daunce · Accepted solution]

then use something like extpart

I've used extpart on many production win2003 servers. Works a charm. on c:\ while OS is running.

Some say to close disk management otherwise you might run into problems, but i've left it open with no error.

From vSphere client, edit VM and increase size of the hard disk.  Inside the guest, open disk management and refresh to see the extra space, then use extpart.

All while the VM is live and in production. No downtime. sweet!

It's amazing it seems to not be very well known. Dell released it in 2003.

[hypercat]

I've already done the part of increasing the hard drive size via VSphere. The additional space shows as an unused partition at the end of the disk.  I want to add some of this free space to the C: partition and some to the 😧 partition. Will extpart.exe work to add space to the C: partition even if it's not contiguous as far as the OS is concerned?

[Troy_Clavell]

as stated, if your HDD has multiple partitions this will not work.  You will have to increase the partition that has the unallocated space.  For extpart, if say extending the C: Partion by 2GB your command would look like

extpart c: 2048

However if C: and 😧 are partitons on a single HDD, you'll need to use converter.

[hypercat]

OK, so it looks like that will not work, since both partitions are on a single virtual hard disk. I have plenty of free space on my datastore, though. How about this idea - if I create a new virtual disk and MOVE the data from the 😧 partition to it (obviously changing the drive letters so that it would remain "D:" as far as the OS is concerned. Could I then wipe the 😧 partition from the existing virtual disk and expand the C: partition using expart.exe into that now empty space?

[hypercat]

OK - new problem. Extpart is not working; when I run it, it says that it can't connect to the C: partition. I have already moved all of the data to another virtual disk, so the C: partition is now the only partition on its own virtual disk with 65GB of unallocated space. HOWEVER, there is one of those old HP utility partitions that was included as part of the original physical-to-virtual conversation, which shows up as the first partition on the virtual disk.  Do you think this is causing the problem? Does any know how I could get rid of that partition at this point?

[daunce]

Extpart is not working; when I run it, it says that it can't connect to the C: partition

Make sure disk management console isn't open.  There needs to be free space directly after partition you want to extend. Reboot to safe mode and try extpart.

Not sure if the utility partition could be causing it.

There should be plenty of posts on the forums here regarding extpart.

Let me know how it goes.