Extend hardisk does not increase the size

[ChrisLopes]

Hi,

I have a c:\ with 30 GB and have added another 50 to be it 80 GB.

I see only 30 GB. Is this due to basic disk structure?

It running windows 2003 sp2 vm on esx 4.0

[AndreTheGiant]

If you have used hot-add, you must also rescan the disk inside the VM.

Then you will see free space at the end of you disk and you must use a program (like Dell extpart) to extend your existing partition.

Andre

[srinivasvivek]

Use Windows disk manager to extend the partition from the guest OS

[dmadden]

If it's the system partition, then diskpart will fail to extend it. You can extend it with a bootable partition utility like gparted. Alternatively you can use converter to extend the disk and the partition for you.

[ratkinson]

Instead of increasing the c: drive.

Add another Harddisk and use that for additional storage.

[beyondvm]

extpart will work on the C: partition just fine, I just did it today actually, its a pretty nifty tool.

To answer your question, it is because when you increase the size in the VM settings you are increasing the disk size but not the partition size. You will need a tool like the others have mentioned, such as diskpart, for windows to utilize the expanded space.

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[ChrisLopes]

Is extending c:\ possible with basic disk in windows 2003 instead of dynamic disk.

Some suggest not possible.

I've added, how do I ensure it will not crash upon reboot.

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

you will have no problems extending a basic disk. You can do it on-line as pointed out using extpart. Or if you are not comfortable doing it that way, use a helper VM and run diskpart to extend out the volume.

since you already have unallocated space follow the instructions below with regards to the helper VM starting at step 4