Resizing Virtual Disk in Build 4560

I've asked this question before for a version 2 release. I never did get a satisfactory response, although someone gave me a kludgy solution that didn't work. I could have sworn I read somewhere that increasing .hdd was possible in 4560. If that's the case, I can't find anything that tells me that.

I have a too-small virtual image for my Win XP VM. I'm trying to enlarge it without destroying its existing contents. I have just enough data that I don't want to try starting over. This ought to be a feature if it isn't already. In the meantime, does someone have a straightforward way of expanding (say doubling) the size of a Virtual Image.

Thanks.

 

In this version it isn't possible to increase hd. You can "recreate" virtual disk but then you will loose all your data.

I think there working on a sollution in next update.

They didn't put it in this version because there were many problems in 2.5

Have you tried compressing virtual drive ?????????

 

That is incorrect. Build 4560 comes with Parallels Image Tool, which can increase the capacity of virtual disks.

 

Sorry Brkirch,

was is it version 4214 that didn't have this option?

Greetings,
Jacky

 

I've tried the Parallels Image Tool that comes with 4560. It "works" in the sense that it enlarged the Virtual HDD. But, here is the residual problem. Tracking this through the Parallels Desktop, the following stats are observed:

Virtual Disk Size: 64000 MB

Actual HD Size 7969 MB

Free Space 513 MB

So, somewhere there is a problem connecting the Virtual Disk Size with Windows itself to get it to recognize that there is a lot more space available than it is "seeing".

I recall various discussions of having to use the Gnome Partition tool, but I haven't tried it yet.

I can't figure out the purpose of Parallels Image Tool if it doesn't finish the job it took an hour to do. The space is phantom, unless there is some other tool that needs to be used to put everything together. If there is, I haven't found it yet.

 

Please see the reply from the support of Parallel to fix the problem which I just did :

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The space you add using Parallels Image tool will be visible to
Guest OS
Guest operating system (guest OS) designates an operating system that
runs under virtual machine control. One primary OS and multiple guest
OSes can run at the same time on a single computer. as
unpartitioned. To
be able to use it, you can create a new partition from the space
added.
To do so you can use build-in Windows utility called Disk Management
which is located in Storage section of Start -> Control Panel ->
Administrative Tools -> Computer Management.

please follow these steps:

1. Start the virtual machine with a Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista
guest
OS installed.
2. From the Windows Start menu choose Run.
3. Type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Return to open Disk Management
utility.
4. Right-click (Ctrl-click) the Unallocated Capacity bar and choose
New Partition from the shortcut menu.
5. Click Next in the dialog box to continue.
6. In the New Partition wizard select Primary Partition and
click Next.
7. Specify the new partition size and click Next.
8. From the drop-down list choose a letter to be assigned for the
drive, and click Next.
9. Select Format partition. Make sure that the NTFS file system and
the Default allocation size are selected. Specify the volume name and
click Next.
10. Click Finish to start formatting.
11. The new volume will appear in the Disk Management window and
in My
Computer folder.


Also you can merge several partitions you already have. You may use
third-party utilities (such as Partition Magic or Acronis Disk
Director).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May the Forces be with you!

Birdman

 

I think you should try compressing virtual drive (when you have an expanding disk)

 

Increasing size of HD

there are many posts about how to do this. let me tell you what worked for me. you will need to puchase a product from Acronis called "true image". it is a PC program that creates bootable clones of disks.

the steps are something like this:
1. from inside parallels but without your current windows drive active, use the configuration editor to add a new hard drive of the size you want. give it a different name than the current disk image you use. note-this drive is not yet bootable as it contain no OS. but, it can have data written to it (next step).
2. use true image to clone your existing drive to the new drive of increased size.
3. using configuration editor use the new disk image with the cloned data as the startup diskimage.
4. startup parallels using that new drive and data.

I have used this basic technique on 2 different macs. has worked great.

It does require the purchase of true image but its money well spent, imho.

good luck

Pete

 

Neither build 4124 or 4128 had this option, so you were correct as far as the inital release of 3.0 not having Image Tool. Image Tool was added back in build 4560.

Read this post for instructions on how to resize your Windows partition after running Parallels Image Tool. If you have already resized using Image Tool then start from the first step and just skip step 2.

 

Thanks for the pointer. I now have two drives, one that is still too small, and a second virtual drive that is correctly sized. Is there any way to merge these two partitions without losing the data on the boot partition. That's my real goal. Having a second virtual drive solves some problems, but it doesn't solve the problem of enlarging the primary drive. It gives me a place to put new things, but not a place to keep existing things that I'd rather not have to reinstall because they are so large, so complex, and require an inordinate amount of tinkering if installed to other than the boot drive (e.g. SAS).

I realize this is now a different question. I do own Acronis True Image, so the technique described could work, but True Image is a Windows program and will either run from a Windows self-booting disk or from inside Windows itself. I'm trying to figure out where to run it from in the scenario described above.