How To Expand An Exisiting Virtual Disk In VMWare Server

I do all the things you list above but i get the following error:
"There is not enough space on the File System for the specific operation (13)."
I have more than enough space on my hard disk (around 30Gb free) and i use the command in order to expand my vm disk from 4 gb to 10.

Hi guys,

why not using VMDiskSize? I have described it here:
http://rafal.drezek.info/2007/11/26/instalacja-sap-netweaver-04-demo-czesc-2/
(you can translate with http://translate.google.com. This entry is about netweaver, but part of it was about how to resize virtual disk)

regards
Rafal

I have read all the articles about expanding disk, but none deals with expanding a VM machines that are homed on a datastore that is on a SAN, used for VMotion. Is the process the same.

Whao!!!!!!!!

This really help. I've been on this for 2 weeks. God bless you. Actually, I've seen some stuff like this but this line

C:\OTHER\Virtual Machines\WTN1>"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware-vdiskmanager" -x 10GB WTN1C.vmdk

spot a difference. I don't know know that I have to run the command from the disk location. I was running it from the program folder.

Now the size has increased. But, there is a problem. When I boot the Ubuntu, the Filesystem size didn't change and I can't hibernate because it's saying no enough space. What could be the problem @ this junction?

Thank you so much.Am just get use to Ubuntu. Never heard of that. I will try it now

Hi, am unable to expand with GParted because the partitions ext3,ext2 … are locked.I mean there is a little lock icon right before each.On right click, th expand/move is not available. how can I go about this?

God bless you man! Everything went well, just the way I want it.

its a great tool by vmware and thanks to all of u guys. but as i expected, didnt happen. i mean i was going to expand my virtual disk to higher size. but wot happned is by virtual c: drive which was earlier 6 gb and i expanded it till 8 gb. it created another 2 gb unallocated partition in my virtual machine. now i am not able to merge two partitions. i dont have enough space left on c: drive of VM to install any third party partitioning tool.s

hi aquaa,

I have the same issue as yours..my C drive is having 6 GB and wanted to extend to 8GB, however, it just doesn't extended to C drive..

in ur statement, you mentioned "c: drive which was earlier 6 gb and i expanded it till 8 gb. " meaning that you have sucessfully extend it?

pls help,,many thanks.

to add on, after i perform:

diskpart.exe
list volume
select volume 1
extend

end up. it was extended the new drive to 8GB and appeared as another volume in My Computer, which now I have C drive (still with 6GB) and D drive (8GB)..this is not the result I wanted but to extended C drive to 8GB…..

You can use Gparted and it works perfectly for Disks located on a SAN, ISCSI, or local. We have done all three. There are a couple parts to this whole thing. You must increase the size of the disk using ESX or using the command line. Then you mount the Gparted ISO as a boot device and then boot off that ISO for your VM. You use the Gparted utility to expand the size of whatever partition you want. There are some particulars that must be met before this can happen, but they are well documented when you find the Gparted resize tool. Start here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

All you windows guys, don't be scared… Linux is only a couple clicks away.

Resizing the boot disk is a bit of a pain. Yet another option I've used (for Windows) is to boot up another vm, add the resized disk, open a dos prompt, and use DISKPART to expand the partition.

/jhd

works fine for me. winxp32 8G -> 16GB with PM8
thx !

Before you begin, create a backup copy of the virtual disk so that you can restore it in case of failures. Extending a virtual disk can be a complex operations for several reasons, e.g.,:

1) The virtual disk that is full happens to contain the boot/primary partition for Windows
2) There are snapshots
3) There is insufficient disk space available on the physical drive to permit growth
4) It is a multi step process and involves use of different tools and commands in a specific sequence. Creative individuals have devised workarounds to extend the primary partition for Windows by using Linux boot disks and disk partitioning tools such as GParted, and you have to get this right.

You’ll find several posts regarding this topic on Google. Essentially, they are all variations of the posts summarized in

http://blog.sharevm.com/2010/01/11/survey-extend-expand-vmware-virtual-disk/

here is an easier way! You should download and try fatVM http://www.gudgud.com/fatvm

fatVM is a reliable, robust, and safe, 1-click solution for extending the C drive of your VMware Fusion or Workstation virtual disk that is becoming full.
* It provides a simple, intuitive, interface and a reliable process that hides the technical complexity of extending a virtual disk.
* It is robust because it can extend virtual disks having snapshots and clones.
* It is safe because it preserves your original disk, which remains available to you for when the need ever arises.

Many thanks for your instruction, I did this successfully, much appreciate it.

Hi While expanding the size does the existing data or the installed software get corrupt.

My VMware is windows server 2000.

My vmdk file isn't just a single file name like yours ( WTN1C.vmdk). It SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.vmdk so I cd into the directory my vmdk is located and when I dir I can see it's there although when I run the vmware-vdiskmanager it just spits out the help menu for vmware-vdiskmanager. I tried renaming the vdk to suse.vmdk and it looked like it started to work but it referenced off a log file that still has the original name in it and failed. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Duggan

@Duggan: Hey mate thats an easy one mine was the same just put quotes around the virtual disk name

This was the command I used

E:\Virtual Machines\Vista Image Test>"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware-vdiskmanager" -x 50GB "Vista Image Test.vmdk"

And result of command:
Grow: 100% done.
Disk expansion completed successfully.

WARNING: If the virtual disk is partitioned, you must use a third-party
utility in the virtual machine to expand the size of the
partitions. For more information, see:
http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1647

Also if you only have the one windows partition you can just expand the permission in disk management without having to worrk about 3rd party utilities.

@Sootie the "" worked perfectly thank you!

Thanks for the tip. Just what I needed to get going

Note that when using Windows 7, you can use the operating system to expand the disk partition:

1. Go to the Control Panel and select Administrative Tools.
2. Select Computer Management
3. Select Disk Management under the Storage category
4. Move the mouse over the drive to be expanded in the right window and right click on it
5. Click on the Extend Volume entry on the pop up menu and fill in the form appropriately

You are right about that. My comment was a bit obscure, although I did mention that the procedure could be used to expand the partition.

More to the point, the procedure that I gave should replace, or augment, your original section above for Windows 7 users:

"You will need to use a third party tool such as Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Director to resize the partition inside the Virtual Machine Operating System."

In other words, once the disk has been enlarged by following your procedure, there is no need for a third party product to expand the virtual disk partition for Windows 7 hosted servers. This ability was not available on Windows XP (nor Vista, I believe).

I was surprised to discover this for myself and wanted to share my discovery. Hope that this helps. Thanks for your input and the opportunity to clarify my original comment.

Jay,

This feature is availible on windows vista (and is what I used to resize my disk after I posted my comment above). I had intended to post this finding when I discovered it but forgot all about it.

I checked thru the previous posts and had a related question.

I use Vsphere4 and I have a Virtual Machine and I want to expand its D drive. However, I can't simply increase the provisioning size, because the datastore is already 95% used.

What is the best way to introduce another volume from another datastore and extend my D drive?

Thanks,
Sirrire

I want to expand my ubuntu partitions. layout is ext3 followed by extended (linux-swap) then unallocated. I've already increased size with vdiskmanger to 20GB. When I use gparted the partition I want to resize isn't available to change. Also I can't move extended partition.

How should I continue?

Thanks

Hi,

I'm trying to run the below command to expand the disk, but it ends up the error.

Command and Error
C:\Exchange Server 2007- Nandish\Exchange 2008>"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -x 5GB "Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition.vmdk"Failed to expand the disk 'Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition.vmdk': One of the parameters supplied is invalid (0x100003e80).

Someone please help me to resolve this.

You will need to navigate dos to where the .vmdk file is first mate, unless your vm is under c:\exchange etc the command wont work.

Clear the command and browse with dos (cd \ then cd c:\wherever the .vmdk files are located) then try the command again.

Hi Freinds,

Please share the SOP of expand/increase the existing D drive space from 20 go 40 gb.

Thans,
Syed

OS type: Windows 2003
Virtual Machine