Migrating and Enlarging 25GB FAT32 Bootcamp Partition Running XPsp3 to 50GB NTFS Virtual Disk Environment - Challenges and Questions

[dogmaster]

Hello,

i've a FAT32-based Bootcamp partinion running under Leopard 10.5.5 and I think I'd like to migrate away from Bootcamp to using a larger, 50GB, Virtual Disk environment under VMware Fusion 2.0.

Now I know FAT32 has an approx. 32GB limit, so that I'll need to convert it to NTFS, but this is not the primary challenge.

To begin the process and cover my butt in case I mess up, I've done the following:

1) I've created a GHOST 14 backup of my original Bootcamp partition, ......and

2) Also used GHOST 14 to create a separate VMDK image that's alleged to be importable by both VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion.

I've successfully used VMware Fusion 2.0 to import #2 above (The VMDK image), installed VMware Tools, then run Windows XP's own CONVERT utility to convert the virtual machine's file system from FAT32 to NTFS.

QUESTION 1: As I cannot seem to locate WHERE VMware Fusion is placing the newly NTFS reformatted Virtual Machine files on my OSX partition. Any suggestions?

I'll need to know where to find these files so that I can export them to a Windows machine where I can run VMware's vmware-vdiskmanager utility to resize the vdisk to 50GB using the following parameters.

vmware-vdiskmanager -x50GB <virtual disk name>

QUESTION 2: How can I remove or delete the appearance of my Bootcamp Partition from VMware FUSION's Virtual Machine Library panel? I'd like to do this WITHOUT deleting my Bootcamp Partinion itself.

QUESTION 3: Can VMware FUSION itself resize a virtual disk to a larger size than that of the original? Or is the above utility my only option?

QUESTION 4: If I'm able to resize the partition with either FUSION itself or with help of vmware-diskmanager utility, will I still need a PC-based partitioning tool to make the unallocated space available even if the VMware disk is set to grow TO 50GB rather than declared as 50GB in advance?

Any help at all with the above would be much appreciated, as I've been wrestling on and off with the above for some weeks now, but think I may be on the home stretch.

Dogmaster

[admin]

To begin the process and cover my butt in case I mess up

Well done - I wish everyone who thought about fiddling with their virtual machine was conscientious like this

QUESTION 1: As I cannot seem to locate WHERE VMware Fusion is placing the newly NTFS reformatted Virtual Machine files on my OSX partition. Any suggestions?

A virtual disk is typically pretty large, so any utility or process which shows file sizes across the entire disk will cause them to stand out. For example, Grand Perspective will do this.

I'll need to know where to find these files so that I can export them to a Windows machine where I can run VMware's vmware-vdiskmanager utility to resize the vdisk

Fusion 2 actually has a UI for this now - it's under Virtual Machine > Settings > Disk

QUESTION 2: How can I remove or delete the appearance of my Bootcamp Partition from VMware FUSION's Virtual Machine Library panel? I'd like to do this WITHOUT deleting my Bootcamp Partinion itself.

There is currently no way to do this.

QUESTION 3: Can VMware FUSION itself resize a virtual disk to a larger size than that of the original? Or is the above utility my only option?

Yes, you can use the UI to do this. The caveat for both the UI and vmware-vdiskmanager is that you must not have a snapshot.

QUESTION 4: If I'm able to resize the partition with either FUSION itself or with help of vmware-diskmanager utility, will I still need a PC-based partitioning tool to make the unallocated space available

Yes, you'll still need to repartition the virtual disk once it's been resized.

[dogmaster]

Hello etung,

See comments below...

>> >> To begin the process and cover my butt in case I mess up

Well done - I wish everyone who thought about fiddling with their virtual machine was conscientious like this

Thanks! I've learned the hard way that an ounce of prevention is worth

pounds of recovery-related grief.

>> >> QUESTION 1: As I cannot seem to locate WHERE VMware Fusion is placing the newly NTFS reformatted Virtual Machine files on my OSX partition. Any suggestions?

A virtual disk is typically pretty large, so any utility or process which shows file sizes across the entire disk will cause them to stand out. For example, Grand Perspective (http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/) will do this.

THanks for the tip. This looks like a handy utility to have. It looks like the missing files are in a hidden directory (one that doesn't appear under Finder but will from the shell) under my virtual

machines directory.

>> >> I'll need to know where to find these files so that I can export them to a Windows machine where I can run VMware's vmware-vdiskmanager utility to resize the vdisk

Fusion 2 actually has a UI for this now - it's under Virtual Machine > Settings > Disk

This is where things seem to be acting peculiarly.

When I go to the Virtual Machine Library, select the newly

imported/converted machine, go to settings/disk I see a slider

indicating the size of my MACBOOK PRO's physical disk, i.e. 186.31GB

(It's a 200GB Drive).

I can't move the slider to less than 186.31GB and if I try to type in my

desired virtual disk size of 50GB, I get a message saying drive CAN BE

ANY SIZE BETWEEN 186GB and 950 GB!

VERY ODD.

Resizing an NTFS partition to 50GB doesn't seem to work under Fusion 2.0.

Any suggestions?

>> >> QUESTION 2: How can I remove or delete the appearance of my Bootcamp Partition from VMware FUSION's Virtual Machine Library panel? I'd like to do this WITHOUT deleting my Bootcamp Partinion itself.

There is currently no way to do this.

It was only an accident that I pointed FUSION to my Bootcamp Partition, but I thought I'd let it run its course thinking I could delete it (The FUSION CONNECTION TO BOOTCAMP).

IF this is a one-way, irreversible process, it would be helpful to have some very explicit warnings about this.

That said, if I'm able to get my virtual machine running, can I then DELETE my bootcamp partition and have it disappear from the Virtual Machine Library?

>> >> QUESTION 3: Can VMware FUSION itself resize a virtual disk to a larger size than that of the original? Or is the above utility my only option?

Yes, you can use the UI to do this. The caveat for both the UI and vmware-vdiskmanager is that you must not have a snapshot.

Don't know what a snapshot is, so suspect/hope I've not created one.

>> >> QUESTION 4: If I'm able to resize the partition with either FUSION itself or with help of vmware-diskmanager utility, will I still need a PC-based partitioning tool to make the unallocated space available

Yes, you'll still need to repartition the virtual disk once it's been resized.

Are there any VMware app notes on how to grow/repartition the virtual disk once its been successfully resized? I've got Partition Magic 8.0 but when I run it I get two errors that say beginning and ending boundaries of VDISK are somehow askew. See attached text file.

Perhaps there's an open source utility you or VMware can recommend?

Many thanks for your assistance!

Dogmaster

Message was edited by: dogmaster