Delete a partition in a VM and expand the initial hard drive allocation

[paulm235]

I created a VM running Server 2012R2 with a drive allocation of 60GB. I decided after doing hours of work on the VM that I had allocated too little hd space for the VM. I decided that I would simply go into vSphere and edit the settings and add to the existing space. The problem is that it created a new partition rather than increasing the size of the original which doesn't help me. How can I delete this new partition and just expand the original one that was allocated when I created this VM?

Thanks

[jrmunday · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul,

Could you clarify what you mean by;

The problem is that it created a new partition rather than increasing the size of the original

A) Do you mean you edited the VM and added a second disk rather than increasing the size of the original? or;

B) Did you increase the size of the original disk and create a new partition in this free space?

Either way, the issue should be simple to resolve;

A) Delete the second disk that you don't need, increase the size of the original. Then from the OS disk manager, rescan the disks and extend C:\ into the free space.

B) Delete the partition that you don't need. Then from the OS disk manager, extend C:\ into the free space.

Cheers,

Jon

[paulm235]

Thanks Jon, A is what I did. I went into vShpere and just upped the provisioned size from 60gb to 120gb. I was expecting the original allocation (the C: drive) to increase to 120gb but instead it created an additional partition. This is my first attempt at increasing a provisioned size. Is this normal behavior when doing this? I simply wanted to increase the size of what is labeled the C drive but now I have 2 partitions on the same disk. I read an article on this suggesting. I just used Partition Manager to merge the partitions so problem solved.

Thanks for responding so quickly!

[a_p_]

Increasing a virtual disk doesn't automatically change the partitioning within the guest OS. So if there is (was) a second partition, it was created manually at some point in time.

André

[verachen]

This problem is solved, but i also want to say my opinion. edit the settings and add to the existing space cannot help solve problem primarily. The above answer says some ways, among them, someone referred to using partition manager to expand partition from unallocated space, i also think this one can be accepted. Some partition manager, like gparted and aomei partition assistant (free version) both can be used to expand and resize partition. If in your vm partitions, there is still some unallocated space, you can merge it with your small partition, or if there is no, you can merge the small partition with its adjacent data partition to system parttion by aomei pa merge partitions feature or resize partition feature to acheive your task. hope this anwser can provide convenience to many users for partition problem.