Virtual disk reverts to previous size?

[LMO201110141]

Space was getting tight on my WinXP Pro VM, so I changed the virtual disk size from 20 GB to 40 GB.  I've run that VM a few times since then, and it has worked fine, but today when I started it up the virtual disk is back to 20 GB.  I needed to delete all snapshots in order to change the disk size and still haven't created any, so reverting to a snapshot as the cause, or the fix, for the problem isn't possible.  Settings still displays the size as 40 GB.

Can anyone shed some light on what happened?

[WoodyZ]

You cannot increase the size of the virtual hard disk while it has snapshots therefore if you did increase the size there were no snapshots, hence nothing to revert to after the fact!

Resizing a virtual hard disk is at a minimum a two step process, the first being increasing the size of the virtual disk itself via its settings in the VMware product and the second doing something with the added space at the Guest OS filesystem level.  Meaning adding another partition and formatting it or enlarging/extending the existing partition.

Have a look at: Resizing Virtual Disks With Step by Step Instructions

[LMO201110141]

WoodyZ wrote:

You cannot increase the size of the virtual hard disk while it has snapshots therefore if you did increase the size there were no snapshots, hence nothing to revert to after the fact!

Yes, that is what I posted: I had to delete the snapshots before increasing the size of the virtual disk and have not created any new ones, therefore reverting cannot have been the cause of this problem, nor could it be used as a solution.

WoodyZ wrote:

Resizing a virtual hard disk is at a minimum a two step process, the first being increasing the size of the virtual disk itself via its settings in the VMware product and the second doing something with the added space at the Guest OS filesystem level.  Meaning adding another partition and formatting it or enlarging/extending the existing partition.

I understand.  When I posted that it was working, I meant that the VM was using the extra virtual disk space.

[WoodyZ]

I understand.  When I posted that it was working, I meant that the VM was using the extra virtual disk space.

If you did increase both the size of the virtual disk and the size of the partition/volume at the filesystem level of the Guest OS then it should still show the size you increase it to and if it's not then at first I have to doubt it was resized to begin with however without additional technical information or being able to examine things then I don't have enough verified information to formulate a reasonable hypothesis.

[LMO201110141]

Understood; it's a very odd thing.  I've got it back to 40 GB again, so I think I'll save a snapshot.