resizing C: partition on a Win2003 server

[Sangokan]

Hi,

I have followed the procedure to resize C: drive given in vmware-land (see below).

I went fine except that now when i go in disk mangement inside my VM the disk shows the right new size 20G but in the C: drive properties the disk shows the old space (see attachement)

I have use diskpart too but the disk shows up as 20G but i still cant go beyond 10G as this is all the free space seen by Windows

Method 1 - Using vmkfstools and gparted () to extend a disk

• Download the gparted livecd ISO and make it available so it can be mounted by the virtual machine's CD-ROM

• Shutdown the virtual machine you want to resize

• Log into the ESX Server console via Putty

• Type "vmkfstools -X /vmfs/volumes///" ie. /vmfs/volumes/Storage1/my_vm.vmdk New disk size can be specified in kilo, mega or gigabytes and will be the total size of the new disk. So if you want to increase a virtual disk from 20GB to 24GB you would specify either 24000m or 24g

• Power on the Virtual Machine and make sure it boots properly, load Disk Management and you will see the new unallocated space

• Now to join the unallocated space to the primary partition, first shutdown the Virtual Machine

• Connect the Virtual Machine to the GpartEd ISO file and make sure you enable Connected at Power On

• Power on the Virtual Machine

• Press ESC at the Bios screen to get to the Boot Menu

• Select CD-ROM as the Boot device

• Gnome Partition Editor will load, press Enter at the boot screen

• At the Boot option screen select Manual Video Card and then select Done

• Select US English at the Language screen

• Select qwerty/us.map at the Keyboard screen

• Select Generic VESA Compatiable at the Video Driver screen

• Select 8 at the Display Depth screen

• Select 1024x768 at the Resolution screen

• Once the partition editor loads, click on /dev/sda1 in the partition list

• Click the Resize/Move button

• Click and drag the arrow to extend the size of the partition, make sure you do a resize (double arrow) and not a move (four way arrow) so you should 0 free space preceding and following and then click the Resize/Move button

• Next click the Apply button and then the operation will start, you can expand Details to see the progress, once completed click the Close button

• Click the power button in the bottom right corner, then select reboot

• Edit the VM and remove the ISO from the CD/ROM device (change to Client)

• When the server restarts it will do a Check Disk, let this complete, Windows will prompt for a reboot after you login

• Reboot and load Disk Management and your Primary Partion will be the new size without any unallocated space

[ctfoster]

Whats the current size of the <name>-flat.vmdk from the CLI. Also have you checked whether you have any active snapshots on this drive ?

[Sangokan]

Bingo, there is a snapshot flat file that has the 20G size (see attachement)

Now when i go to the snapshot manager i dont see any snapshots, is that possible to concatenate the flat file to the vmdk from the CLI maybe?

[ctfoster]

OK - first the good news. You don't have any snapshots - they have the addition <delta>. Extending a vmdk with an active snapshot is never a very good idea, ...but you don't have that problem. The file <name>-flat.vmdk is your disc and this is the correct size.

The problem is you really should be able to see the space as 'unallocated' at the end of the drive.

Hold on... looking at your original screen dump it does show a 20Gb partition... could you take a closer look !

[Sangokan]

I have rescan the disk from the disk management mmc and from diskpart, i have ran a check disk too...rebooted the server...

I know the partition is seen as a 20 GB one but the C:drive is still 10GB and impossible to extend it as diskpart sees it 20GB, crazy...see screenshot

[ctfoster · Accepted solution]

I've no idea - as you say it doesn't add up. The only thing I can suggest is to run the machine through converter and resize your drives on the way.

[kjb007]

I've had this problem as well. Even though you've added the space to the partition, your ntfs filesystem has not been resized to encompass the entire space that you have now added. Converter would be the easiest option here. Load it and increase your volume size.

-KjB