decrease maximum size of growable disk

[mumpitz01]

Hi,

how can I decrease the maximum size of a growable disk for a virtual machine (not the amount of datastore space the virtual machine really uses).

We have:

- virtual machine on an ESX4 host

- guest os: Windows 2008 R2

- one virtual disk, growable, with max disk size 100GB

- actual vmware only uses 8GB for this vm on the datastore

- in the windows guest we only use a 40GB partition for the system, so 60GB of the virtual disk are definitely unused

Now I want to reduce the size of the virtual disk to 40GB - but I don't know how. I tried the vmware converter but without success (Win2008 R2 is not supported, with the standalone converter I cannot change disksize, and the vsphere converter plugin always fails with an unknown error.)

Any idea?

Thanks,

Matthias

[a_p_]

As you already found out, W2K8 R2 is currently not supported by the Converter.

You could try to set the OS for the VM to Windows 2008 (without R2), convert the VM and then reset it to R2!

As an alternative you could also use a third party tool which supports R2.

However, since you are using thin provisioned disks and don't waste disk space, I'd recommend you wait for the next version of the Converter.

André

[mumpitz01]

Thanks for the answere.

I already tried to change the OS before converting the vm with the standalone converter. But when I want to change the disk options then before the conversion starts I can only select the option "copy all disks and maintain layout" without the ability to change disk size. I do not know why I cannot modify the disk size

Perhaps you are right. I should wait for a new converter version...

Matthias

[rogard]

First I would create a 40Gb VMDK and add it to the VM, then boot the VM using an Acronis True Image server ISO.

It can recognize used space an resize the NTFS volume

Then detach the old disk and attach the new disk on the same scsi address.

Boot it up and off you go!

(There are opensource ways of doing this (gparted springs to mind) however very few are as complete as Acronis.

[a_p_]

Perhaps you are right. I should wait for a new converter version...

You don't loose anything, so that's what I would do.

No matter what you are going to do, make sure to use a tool which preserves the partition alignment!

André

Please consider to mark Correct and/or Helpful answers.

[mumpitz01]

Yes, that seems to be a good idea. I will try it when I have an acronis iso CD.

Thanks for your hint.

Matthias