VMware Cloud Community
rhavenn
Contributor
Contributor

Server 2008 Extend Volume and Disk Drive size

Hello-

We're running ESX 3.5 and have a Server 2008 x64 Standard VM. We were trying to grow a data partition (primary partition; no issues with page files, system disk or anything) and Disk Management shows it as grown from 30GB -> 80GB, but the actual disk, D:\, still shows only the 30GB max size. We tried rebooting the VM and it stills only shows the max size of 30GB in the Explorer Window and trying to dump a 3GB file on there throws an error.

The VM itself has had its diskspace increased to 140GB, but is there anything else we need to do to get this to take or is this purely a MS problem? The VM is set as a single basic disc with 2 partitions (c and d).

Any thoughts suggestions?

Thanks.

Henrik

20 Replies
VMmatty
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Windows 2008 allows you to extend volumes without taking the VM down or needing any downtime. The process looks like this:

1) Extend the size of the VMDK file from the VI Client.

2) From inside the VM, launch Disk Management. Right click and select "Rescan disks"

3) You should see partitioned space and unpartitioned space. Right click on the partitioned (blue) space, and click Extend Volume. A short wizard will walk you through the process of extending the volume.

If you see both the current partitioned space (blue) and the extra space (black) in Disk Management, you can just do step 3 to extend the volume.

Hope this helps..

Matt | http://www.thelowercasew.com | @mattliebowitz
Reply
0 Kudos
Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership

Hello,

Moved to Virtual Machien and Guest OS forum.

Once you expand the volume using Edit Settings within the VIC/vmkfstools then it is a Guest OS issue on expanding the filesystem to accomodate the new space. You could also do this in a 1 step process using VMware Converter.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, Virtualization Practice Analyst[/url]
Now Available: 'VMware vSphere(TM) and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment'[/url]
Also available 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise'[/url]
[url=http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Blog_Roll]SearchVMware Pro[/url]|Blue Gears[/url]|Top Virtualization Security Links[/url]|Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast[/url]

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
Reply
0 Kudos
danpalacios
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

VmMatty gave a great explaination of the process, I just have a couple of questions ..

  • Do you have one singular virtual disk (vmdk) which is divided into two partitions or two seperate virtual disks?

  • Can you post a screenshot of your disk manager so we can see the disk setup and what it is reporting?

Reply
0 Kudos
powerzhu
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

no enough information, what Disk Management shows is important, hope this can help you

Go,go,go
Reply
0 Kudos
rhavenn
Contributor
Contributor

the solution was the following:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100726...

Basically, open a CMD prompt and use diskpart to extend the volume.

Reply
0 Kudos
mylvisaker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I just ran into the same situation trying to extend a disk on a 2008 server.

In VIC added 10Gb to the vmdk for the servers 😧 drive. Then in Disk Management did a rescan of the disks. Then selected the 😧 drive, right clicked and selected Extend and walked through the steps in the gui.

When it finished Disk Management saw the increased disk space, but Windows Explorer continued to show the original disk size.

So, I then ran diskpart's extend command against the disk that it already showed as extended....and it fixed the issue!

Reply
0 Kudos
juchestyle
Commander
Commander

Hey guys, I ran into this issue too. I was able to shrink the volume. When I did this, it said that only a gig was free, but when it shrunk the c drive it shrunk it by 16 gigs. Then everything looked good again.

Matthew

Kaizen!

Kaizen!
Reply
0 Kudos
Bike1986
Contributor
Contributor

Hello.

This process worked great in our lab. However, when we tried it on a production machine Windows Explorer could not see the new space. The server is running Windows Server 2008 Stnd Edit 64 bit with SP2. We increased the space of Hard Disk 1 from 24 GBs to 30 GBs. Windows Disk Management saw the new 6 GBs and we were able to extend the volume to 30 GBs. However, Explorer still only sees 24 GB. This is the "C" drive of the server and we are running out of space. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Reply
0 Kudos
corym
Contributor
Contributor

The shrink disk trick fixed our issue. We had extended a 20gb drive to 30gb via VSVC and then went into windows, rescanned the disk and saw the unpartitioned space, extended the volume and it did it but through some invalid parameter error. Disk management saw the disk as 30gb, but windows explorer still only saw it as 20gb. We were in the process of moving the vm from 3.5 to 4.0, so went through upgrading vmtools and upgraded the hardware which did not help. I found this thread, and did the shrink of the disk in windows. It was interesting because the shrink wizard saw the disk as 30gb and we were using less than 20gb, but the wizard said it could only be shrunk by 43mb. We went ahead and shrunk it, and it actually freed up 10.04gb. Extended the volume again and it went fine and all was ok. Very strange issue.

vmwaros_Paolone
Contributor
Contributor

Hello, if this may help, I've fixed the issue in a different way.

The symptoms: extended vmdk using vsphere client from 50 to 60 GB. Extended windows volume with disk manager in server manager. Invalid parameter error. Disk manager and diskpart then showed a 60 GB drive, partition and volume while Explorer still got stuck to 50.

The solution: extended vmdk adding 1 more GB (from 60 to 61). Extended windows volume using diskpart. Then disk manager, diskpart and explorer correctly showed a 61 GB drive. Issue fixed.

dslewiston
Contributor
Contributor

I have done all of the steps above and I still cannot get windows explorer to recognize the extension.  I have used diskpart and diskmanager.  I have shrunken the volumes and still never see a reflected change.

Reply
0 Kudos
Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership

Hello,

Everytime I expand the C: drive using gparted or something like that, external to the VM guest OS, it usually works out just fine.  For non-C: drives diskpart works just fine.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, 2010, 2011,2012,2013,2014

Author of the books 'VMWare ESX and ESXi in the Enterprise: Planning Deployment Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. 'VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment', Copyright 2009 Pearson Education.

Virtualization and Cloud Security Analyst: The Virtualization Practice, LLC -- vSphere Upgrade Saga -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
dslewiston
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks.  I will try AOMEI Partition Manager.  It is requiring a restart to perform the actions so I will have to wait tell this evening when it is out of production use to perform.  I will let you know how it goes. 

Reply
0 Kudos
dslewiston
Contributor
Contributor

I have used AOMEI Partition Manager and although it rebooted the Virtual machine last Friday evening and looked like it was actually making the changes nothing changed.  Upon Reboot everything was the same as before.  my Disks are still the same size.  I hate to say it but we are also fighting licensing issues.  Seems from multiple orders we have covering various products some of them are ending and others aren't we aren't getting the best support right now.  We were approached by Scale Computing and their HC3 product.  Seriously considering the switch after the last couple of weeks we have had. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for fixing this drive expansion problem?

Reply
0 Kudos
Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership

Hello,

I like to use Partition Magic or Parted Magic which is part of the "Ultimate Boot CD" which is free. UBCD has been a useful tool in my arsenal for things of this nature. There is also a UBCD for windows. I am not familiar with AOMEI.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, 2010, 2011,2012,2013,2014

Author of the books 'VMWare ESX and ESXi in the Enterprise: Planning Deployment Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. 'VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment', Copyright 2009 Pearson Education.

Virtualization and Cloud Security Analyst: The Virtualization Practice, LLC -- vSphere Upgrade Saga -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
Atb201110141
Contributor
Contributor

Thnx

Reply
0 Kudos
eDuTek
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks Corym - Shrinking the disk "96MB" helped me in recovering the 20GB I had originally allocated.   Appreciate the post! 

Reply
0 Kudos
Chrislee6
Contributor
Contributor

These years our company and my family use the EaseUS Partition Master to resize the HHD and extend the specific partition. According to my colleague and own experience, EaseUS Partition works well.

Server version:http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager-server/

If you worry about the price, you can get discount coupe through their Live Chat. Good luck!

Reply
0 Kudos
dannyr1992
Contributor
Contributor

This worked perfectly, thanks for this

Reply
0 Kudos