Unable to shrink virtual disk with VMWare Converter

[colonel_claypoo]

Hello,

I'm unable to shrink a virtual disk from a VM that I have running in VMWare Workstation 10 with VMWare Converter. It won't allow me to specify a different size.

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong? Thanks.

[MKguy]

Can't you select a different "Data copy type" above? The one you have selected in the screenshot won't allow you to change disk sizes and is just a 1:1 block copy of the vmdk file.

Also looks like you have a Linux VM there. Disk/partition resizing through volume-based cloning is only available for certain file systems and without software-raid too IIRC:

From the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Documentation :

Volume-based cloning at the file level

Performed when you select a size smaller than the original volume for NTFS

volumes or you choose to resize a FAT volume.

For FAT, FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, ext4, and ReiserFS file systems,

Converter Standalone preserves the file system type during a volume-based cloning at the file level.

Dynamic source disks are read but not preserved during volume-based conversions. Dynamic

Also it's important to note that you can't use volume based cloning with resizing for the conversion of a powered-off VM, like a workstation image. You have to do a hot-conversion (treat it like a "physical" machine) while the VM is powered-on:

Copy all disks and maintain layout

Results in disk-based cloning. You can preserve the source disk layout in the destination virtual machine. This option is not available for physical machine sources.

Select volumes to copy

Results in volume-based cloning. Volume-based cloning is performed at file or block level. You can select the volumes to be copied to the destination virtual machine. You can also resize and reorganize the volume layout. This option is available for powered on source machines that run Windows and Linux, and for all other supported sources that run Windows.

[JPM300]

When you shrink the size of the disk the Vmware converter changes its copy type from block level to file level.  As MKguy said make sure it is set to file level and it should let you change it.  This also means you can't do a sync at a later point as file level doesn't support this, only block level.

[JLackman]

The reason the dropdown does not show any options (stuck on "COPY ALL DISKS AND MAINTAIN LAYOUT" ) is that this is probably NOT a windows machine. You do not get the option to change sizes on non-windows OS's.  So, if it's WIndows, then you have another selection called "SELECT VOLUMES TO COPY" and it will let you choose volumes, and change their sizes.  All you can do on a non-linux machine is change thick/thin.

Hope this helps