Is it possible to transfer everything from one virtual hard disk that is smaller to a virtual hard disk that is bigger in VMWare Workstation using the same virtual machine?

[RocknRollTim]

Hi there,

I was wondering whether it is possible to transfer everything from one virtual hard disk that is smaller to a virtual hard disk that is bigger in VMWare Workstation using the same virtual machine? If so, please could someone advise me on how to do this. Also can disk management and transfer utilities be used within the virtual machines to do this?

Many thanks,

RocknRollTim

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure what exactly you are asking for. Can you please clarify!?

Basically you can resize a virtual disk and/or add a second virtual disk to a VM and transfer/copy files. You can also resize the virtual disk by using e.g. VMware Converter.

André

[RocknRollTim]

@a.p. You've answered my question sufficiently and I'll take your advice on board. Basically my Windows 7 x64 Ultimate virtual machine is very low on memory and need a bigger virtual hard disk in order to store everything I want on this virtual machine.

Many thanks,

RocknRollTim

[continuum]

the easiest way to do that is to just add a second virtual disk to that VM.

second way is to expand the existing virtual disk

[Bernd_Nowak]

With Windows 7 and 2008 R2 as a VM I would say that if host harddisk place is available simply making the disk in VMware Workstation bigger and expanding the partition in Windows 7 / 2008 R2 is the easiest way. IMO

One problem I had in another version was that I resized the disk with snapshots attached to it. Was no good idea. And don't ask, because the GUI has not allowed me to make the virtual harddisk bigger I used the vmware command tools which did allow me to expand which resulted in a damaged virtual harddisk because the snapshots didn't matched the new size

[adelisa]

Hi RocknRollTim,

Welcome to the community.

As you explained two things one is low memory and bigger virtual harddisk.

If you have sufficient physical memory please assign more RAM to vm machine .

storage point of view you can add additional storage when ever you need it as described by  continuum.

" Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion."

[WoodyZ]

adelisa wrote: As you explained two things one is low memory and bigger virtual harddisk.

I doubt that RocknRollTim explained two things, rather incorrectly referred to hard disk space as memory when stating "virtual machine is very low on memory and need a bigger virtual hard disk in order to store everything I want on this virtual machine"!

[RocknRollTim]

Thanks guys I'll take your advice on board, thank you, I was thinking well too complicated and was relating to my virtual machine as a real machine i.e. 2 physical hard disks using ghosting software such as Norton Ghost or transferring software such as Windows Easy Transfer etc. Would there be a problem in using this method?

@adelisa Thank you for welcoming me to the forum, really much appreciated.

Many thanks,

RocknRollTim