Vsphere 7 enter an amount larger than the original VM

[dharq]

 I have a VM with Win Server 2019, went to VM settings to add space added it then in Computer Management the un allocated space was not accessible you cant format it or anything. So I went back to settings to reduce the amount and it gave

me that message. "enter an amount larger than the original " I need to reduce the amount since its not accessible for any reason. The Un allocated space in black right click options are greyed out

please assist

[a_p_]

A virtual disk cannot be reduced by simply configuring a smaller size, because the Hypervisor (ESXi) is not aware of the guest OS partitions.
The official way to reduce a virtual disk's size is to use e.g. the VMware Converter.

Anyway, what about the issue with increasing the guest OS partition? Maybe we can manage to resize it.
A screenshot from the Windows Disk Management window might help.

André

[dharq]

here is how it looks I cant seem to do anything with the unallocated space

[dharq]

I checked all the other volumes next to the un allocated space they don't offer expand I seem to remember in the past on older versions of vmware I was able to decrease the HD amount. but never had a problem with un allocated space being un useable.

[a_p_]

The reason why you cannot expand the E: partition is most likely that Disk0 has an MBR partition table (2TB max.). There are tools available which claim that they are able to reconfigure MBR to GPT, but AFAIK this is not supported by Microsoft. If you are going to try this, remember to either backup the VM, or at lease create a snapshot prior to the reconfiguration.

André