ARM Windows 11 VM Disk Partition Size/Resize

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BrianD28

Member
I have just recently received my new MacBook Pro MAX M3 with 4TB of Disk. I have successfully downloaded and installed ARM Windows 11.
As I started to work up to migrating my Intel MacBook Pro to the new machine, I noted that the Windows 11 VM only has a maximum of about 250GB and I was hoping to allow at least 1TB. I found a place to change the Windows 11 VM disk space, but it will only allow making the partition smaller.

Has anyone solved the issue of allocating TB scale disk space to the Windows 11 VM?
 
It appears that there is no way to increase the size of the default VHD (Virtual Hard Drive). However, under Settings>System>Storage>Advanced Storage Settings>Disks & Volumes, a new VHDx (Virtual Hard Drive Supporting TB Size) can be created.

Take care to choose a location that makes sense and a size that leaves space for MACOS drive space. If desired, you can create a shortcut to it on the Windows 11 Desktop or elsewhere.

This solution is workable for what I wanted and can be workable for others wondering how to increase HDsk space specific to their VMs.
 
This turns out to be a nastier problem than I first thought. It turns out that although you can create a virtual disk with more space, that disk is mounted as content in the original Windows Storage space. And when you add enough content, you wind uip filling up the original space pronto. And worse, just deleting what you added leaves the Windows Storage space blocked full. To clear it up, after hours of investigation, I found that it was necessary to eject the new virtual disk and then, after backing up the data before ejecting, delete the virtual disk. All that time was spent on a learning curve figuring out how to build and destroy virtual disks on both Windows 11 and MacOS Tahoe.

If you need extra space on the scale of TBs, don't try creating a virtual disk in the Windows 11 ARM space. Do it in the MacOS space and then allow it to be seen in the Windows 11 VM. Heed this post, it'll save you some time and worry that you may have really screwed up bad.
 
Better still, I found a youtube by 'Andrew Tsai that describes a procedure to expand the originally allocated disk space for Windows 11. Take some time to follow through on the procedure he describes.and although he ultimately warns to make sure you expand the correct partition so you don't loose date, be aware as I found out the procedure expands the correct partition it re-installs Windows 11 and all data added gets tossed. Lucky me! I am just still in the process of configuring and populating my new system for the first time and this was tolerable - excepting that I had to redo my migration efforts. So, now my ARM Windows 11 has 2Tb of space and all is well.

Here's that youtube ...,

 
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