How I resized a Windows partition

[jeliker]

Moved from How Parallels "Desktop for Mac"

I successfully resized my Windows 2003 installation today using the following process.


Copy the HDD drive image file and rename
Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file
Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk
Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART
View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition
Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.
Enter the command extend
Enter the command exit
Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile.


I don't know if DISKPART can be used on Windows XP, etc. but I know that you can download it from Microsoft. Google diskpart windows download.

As mentioned, this worked for me though I cannot guarantee that this will work in all situations.

[BenInBlack]

:D :D I what to give you a big thank you for these instructions.

I can personally vouch for the fact that they work with Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2
I just went from 8gig to 20gig.

Just some notes to help those that also want to do this.
1. When you do "List Volumns" you will be hit with 2 volumns that say the same size, so remember you've setup your backup copy as the boot so that will be the C: and you added your resized one and that will most likely be the E: (D: being the CD/DVD).

Here is what my "List Volume" looked like at the point just before extending
DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 D CD-ROM 0 B
Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 7995 GB Healthy System
Volume 2 E NTFS Partition 7995 GB Healthy System

at this point i did the "select volume 2" and then did the extend

[wesley]

Wow, this should be in a FAQ or something.

[KaiserX]

Worked for me. Thank you for posting this!

[MarkHolbrook]

Worked beautiful. Thanks a million!

[hevans]

Thanks in advance.

Hugh Evans

[neile1]

Thanks a lot jeliker

[BenInBlack]

After i installed beta 6 i found that parallel had changed it an put a folder that contains the image tools and parallel.

[jeliker]

After i installed beta 6 i found that parallel had changed it an put a folder that contains the image tools and parallel.

You'll need to use Image Tools to resize the hard drive image in step 2 of my original post

[jkragenb]

Outstanding solution - worked perfectly. Thank you.

[wndxlori]

Worked like a charm. This should be a sticky thread.

[pmbooks1]

I've gotten as far as resizing the original HDD, but am stumped from 3 forward, changing VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image. If this is found in the Configuration Editor, I'm not sure what to do. You guys must already be Windows saavy (or programming smart). Any help would be appreciated, thanks, Paul

[jeliker]

I've gotten as far as resizing the original HDD, but am stumped from 3 forward, changing VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image. If this is found in the Configuration Editor, I'm not sure what to do. You guys must already be Windows saavy (or programming smart). Any help would be appreciated, thanks, Paul

When you first start Parallels Workstation, you'll see the property page for the current VM. If you click on "Hard Disk 1" under the resources section, you'll be shown the Configuration Editor page and "Hard Disk 1" will be highlighted. Under the "Image File" field on the right side of the screen, browse to and select the copied, renamed image file. That will make the copy the new boot drive.

Now, Click the Add... button at the bottom, left side of the screen. Choose "Hard Disk" then click Next. Choose "Use an existing hard disk image" then click Next. Browse to the original, resized image file then click Finish. Now, you'll see a "Hard Disk 2" entry on the left on the Configuration Editor page. Click OK to close the Configuration Editor window.

Start your VM and follow steps 4-8 in my original post.

Shutdown your Windows guest OS and wait for the VM property page to appear. Once it does, click on the Edit button to display the Configuration Editor again. Highlight "Hard Disk 2" then click Remove. Select "Hard Disk 1" and browse to and select the original, resized image file under the Image File field on the right side of the screen. Click OK to close the Configuration Editor window. Click Save to update your VM properties.

Restart your VM and you should see that your guest OS drive is now up to the size you reset it to.

[BatmanPPC]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

Windows should run chkdsk automatically.

[joem]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.



Perhaps, but resizing a partition I don't have a copy of seems unnecessarily risky, so I wouldn't advise not copying it first just in case something goes wrong.

[BatmanPPC]

Perhaps, but resizing a partition I don't have a copy of seems unnecessarily risky, so I wouldn't advise not copying it first just in case something goes wrong.

Heh, how come I always feel like I'm the only one who runs a backup system?

[dtaylor]

I tried using diskpart on my workstation instance but got an error about the disk management subsystem not being available. So I found a workaround using Image Tools and gparted. My original disk image was 4GB resizable. Here's the steps I used:

1) Resize from 4GB to 10GB using Image Tools, keeping as resizable.
2) Boot into gparted.
3) Try to resize to partition to 10GB. BUT I got an error during the resizing operation. I assumed it was because of the resizable partition - still not sure.
4) Quit qparted and use Image Tools to convert the image from resizable to "plain" format (still 10GB).
5) Reboot into windows. Still showing C: as 4GB. Didn't work.
6) Boot again with qparted. Showed the partition was full 10GB, but with 7.5GB used instead of 1.5 GB used.
7) Resize partition to next smallest value available. This was successful.
8) Reboot back into Windows XP, and how I have 8GB free.

I think the key was getting gparted to actually do the resize operation by slightly shrinking the partition size. This rewrote all the data and properly set the free space.

[jeliker]

I tried using diskpart on my workstation instance but got an error about the disk management subsystem not being available. So I found a workaround using Image Tools and gparted. My original disk image was 4GB resizable. Here's the steps I used…

Good to know. Was your original partition FAT32 or NTFS? I didn't mention in my original post but I was resizing an NTFS volume.

[BeyondPrint]

I'd like to also say thanks to this. Worked like a charm!

[myktee]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

Windows should run chkdsk automatically.

All,

This technique worked exactly as mentioned. I was able to expand a single 4 GB NTFS boot volume (C:\ drive) with about 250 MB of free space to 8 GB.

I extended the virtual hard drive file using the Parallels Image Tool to 8 GB (perhaps I could have used gparted to do this too), booted the VM to the mounted gparted 0.2.5 live CD ISO image and resized the original partition from 4 GB to 8 GB.

After restarting the VM (booting off the hard drive), Windows XP did a checkdisk, restarted, launched a dialog mentioning some device was found/changed (I suspect this step might not always happen to you), restarted and now I have an 8GB partition in a single virtual hard drive file.

I agree, this should be a FAQ entry or sticky topic!

Thanks Batman!

myktee

[kwojniak]

I too also used the GParted LiveCD. Was a snap to use and worked quite fast.

[pcolag8r]

Gparted LiveCD worked for me as well. I had already resized using the Parallels Imaging Tool (10g to 30g) but my guest os (win2k) didn't recognize the size increase. I booted from the Gparted LiveCD, it showed my original 10g partition and 20g of unpartitioned space. Resized the 10g to 30g. Rebooted. Chkdsk did it's thing. Rebooted again because something about new devices. Works fine.

Original Disk: 10g expanding (ntfs)
New Disk: 30g expanding (ntfs)

I think this was the way to go.

[chesterc]

I downloaded the gparted iso and have tried three times now. Every time it freezes during the middle of the resize. I think I'm just going to scratch everything and start over. sigh :(

[dmgwork]

:D I tried everything, this was so simple. (Win XP PRo on MacBook Pro 17

I successfully resized my Windows 2003 installation today using the following process.


Copy the HDD drive image file and rename
Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file
Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk
Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART
View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition
Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.
Enter the command extend
Enter the command exit
Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile.


I don't know if DISKPART can be used on Windows XP, etc. but I know that you can download it from Microsoft. Google diskpart windows download.

As mentioned, this worked for me though I cannot guarantee that this will work in all situations.

[scotymac]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

VM iso boot worked great on my FAT32 partition, thanks Batman!

[loosegroove]

WOW!!!!

I just did this on a Windows XP Home partition and worked like a charm.

I agree that this really should be a part of the Parallels FAQ (if it's not already).

Thank you for the great tip!!!!

--
Bronson

[kitesurfer]

Hi all,

I am new at Mac and don't know exactly how to:
"Copy the HDD drive image file"

I looked into Disk Utility but not sure that is the way since it said "create"

Anyway can someone confirm the way to do this.

Thanks a lot,
Emilio

[joem]

I am new at Mac and don't know exactly how to:
"Copy the HDD drive image file"


Open the Finder, and navigate to your VM directory, typically ~/library/parallels/vmname
where ~ is your home directory, and vmname is the name you gave your VM.
Click on the .hdd file you find there, then right click (or control-click with a one button mouse) on it and select duplicate from the context menu. When the copy is complete, rename the copy to the name of your choice.

[Larry__Rymal]

Oh myyyy, my images are in Fat32 rather than NTFS. I originally upgraded from Windows 98 to XP. I sure didn't notice the Fat32 and NTFS option during the install.

I don't quite know enough about Windows to convert to NTFS so I can get the actual resizing to work. If anyone can kick my rear into the right direction.

I can't believe I did this. At least we have images to work with!

[jeliker]

Oh myyyy, my images are in Fat32 rather than NTFS. I originally upgraded from Windows 98 to XP. I sure didn't notice the Fat32 and NTFS option during the install.

I don't quite know enough about Windows to convert to NTFS so I can get the actual resizing to work. If anyone can kick my rear into the right direction.

I can't believe I did this. At least we have images to work with!

You can convert your drive to NTFS like this:


Choose Start Menu >> Run then type cmd then click OK
Type convert c: /fs:ntfs then press ENTER. Note that if you are converting a drive letter other than C: be sure to type that drive letter in the command. You may be told you cannot convert now but it will occur during the next reboot. This is okay.
Close the command window by typing exit then pressing ENTER.
Reboot if necessary (if the convert command told you that it will convert after the next reboot

[Larry__Rymal]

Thanks!!!!!!!
I just got GPARTED up and running and was getting ready to work with it, but all its menus are ghosted out. Durn.... Sez it can't detect anything to work with. It isn't locked up, and the mouse works, along with the ABOUT GPART, etc. Just no un-ghosted menus.

What is this program, a LINUX program? The script flies too fast for me to read it. If that is the case, wow, this would be third OS I've run on this computer. Definitely feeling like a NEWBIE here.

Anyway, I'll do another backup of my .hdd file, just to be safe, and then work to convert to NTFS.

I sure appreciate all the help, ya'll. I would like to know why GPART has its options disabled, though.

------------------ 6/10/2006 8:30 PM CST
Little running diary here on this project. Just move on if you need to, but I'm really enjoying the online tutorials you guys are providing.

I just completed the conversion to NTFS. I sure appreciate that. Someway, I missed that option when I ran the XP upgrade over '98. I'll attempt DISKPART and see if that will work out. Obviously, NTFS upgrading gave me some more space, but I still need to fit the drive space to the partition size.

------------------ 6/10/2006 9:12 PM CST
Well, I gotta tell y'all. I have learned a lot this afternoon and evening. Thanking you folks for the help. I accomplished three things today on my MacBook. I learned how to convert from FAT32 to NTFS. I ran some weird operating system that launched a program on my computer, although I couldn't get it to do the right stuff, and I resized my disk image to fit the disk size via DISKPART.

This has really been an awesome experience. And not once did Parallels Desktop choke or cause me to grovel to get things to work. Everything I was doing was strictly Windows.

Well, I'm happy. I had only 1.5 Gbytes remaining (only???) and now have 12 gigs. I've been installing mapping and GIS software and the database and map files for those things eat drive space. I now have the space and can continue installing this stuff.

Thanks so much again....

--Larry

[mostlycloudy]

Copy the HDD drive image file and rename
Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file
Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk
Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART
View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition
Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.
Enter the command extend
Enter the command exit
Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile.



I did everything exactly as described up to Step 7, but when I used the extend command i got a message saying DISKPART FAILED TO EXTEND THE VOLUME. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE VOLUME IS VALID FOR EXTENDING.

Anybody knows what to do now? :confused:

[Larry__Rymal]

I did everything exactly as described up to Step 7, but when I used the extend command i got a message saying DISKPART FAILED TO EXTEND THE VOLUME. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE VOLUME IS VALID FOR EXTENDING.
I can't quite recall what my error messge read, but my parition was in Fat32 and that kept DISKPART from working. I would make sure a couple of things: run the script that jeliker listed.

Your images have got to be in NTFS format. And make sure you resized your disk image via the Imager program from Parallels first.

Everything should work. If a dummie like me can do this..... ;)

[Larry__Rymal]

Bump... :>)

[jelwell]

The newly released LiveCD gparted-livecd-0.2.5-1did not work for me.

However the older release did:
gparted-livecd-0.2.5

I filed a bug ( http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=345466 ), in the meantime just use the older release.
Joseph Elwell.

[bartho]

The newly released LiveCD gparted-livecd-0.2.5-1did not work for me.
Strange, that exact version worked for me yesterday... :confused:

[darren]

:D :D I what to give you a big thank you for these instructions.

I can personally vouch for the fact that they work with Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2
I just went from 8gig to 20gig.

Just some notes to help those that also want to do this.
1. When you do "List Volumns" you will be hit with 2 volumns that say the same size, so remember you've setup your backup copy as the boot so that will be the C: and you added your resized one and that will most likely be the E: (D: being the CD/DVD).

Here is what my "List Volume" looked like at the point just before extending
DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 D CD-ROM 0 B
Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 7995 GB Healthy System
Volume 2 E NTFS Partition 7995 GB Healthy System

at this point i did the "select volume 2" and then did the extend



need a little help. i can not seem to get the new virtual drive to be listed as volume 2. It is listed under volume 1 as a foreign disk. nNy help would be appreciated

[darren]

I did everything exactly as described up to Step 7, but when I used the extend command i got a message saying DISKPART FAILED TO EXTEND THE VOLUME. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE VOLUME IS VALID FOR EXTENDING.

Anybody knows what to do now? :confused:


Did you get a response to this?

[sloosley]

sourceforge.net hint worked flawlessly. Great, great hint. Thank you !!! !!!

[blomasky]

Help: Followed the instructions, but when I LIST VOLUME in diskpart, I see the 3 partitions (CD , System and EXTRA) but there is NO drive letter for the 2nd volume and when I select it and type extend I get: "the volume you selected can not be extended"

[jordan314]

I also am having trouble. I backed up and then resized my drive using the imaging tool from 8 GB to 12 GB.
Then I tried extending with disk part but got the error that the format was FAT32 and needed to be NTFS.
I ran convert c: /fs:ntfs and converted the drive to NTFS. Then I tried running expand again in diskpart but I got the same error people have been getting:
Diskpart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending.
I tried formatting the second unformatted partition using compmgmt.msc as NTFS and running the command again, but no luck.
When I select the volume, I select C, the main 8 GB partition, and not E, the new 4 GB partition, right? I'm trying to expand my existing C drive?
Thanks,
Jordan

[fryke]

Works nicely in WinXP sp2. diskpart is installed, no need to download.

[filch]

I have followed all the steps here but ran into a problem when I went to extend using DSKPART. My volume is a fat32 and DSKPART will not work with fat32 volumes. I originally set this up using fat32 because I read that if you used NTFS, you could not network internally with OSX.

Can someone help me out here. Enlighten me. Could I have used NTFS and still be able to network with OSX? Any way around this extend issue? I have almost no space left on the main drive. I know thaere is a method to convert fat32 to NTFS but can't remember how and am worried about whether it will work under Parallels desktop.

Thanks in advance.

Dave

[jordan314]

Flitch,
Several people have already posted the answer to your problem, to convert to NTFS run CMD and type this and hit enter:
convert c: /fs:ntfs

Ok, we were able to expand the partition after converting it to a dynmaic disk in disk management, and also deleting the second partition we had incorrectly set as NTFS. Booting from the copy we made of my original virtual hard drive file, extend in diskpart worked fine, but we had to select the disk number to extend the drive onto. http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/f/?en/Library/5079e4a1-b0be-4fdf-9b4a-ece7a0755c5c1033.mspx explained extend in detail. After we selected the volume, we typed list disk and then picked the empty space into which we wanted to extend the drive. We then typed extend disk=n, choosing the correct disk....extended.
Then....we powered down the virtual machine and changed the original hard drive, now extended, as the main harddrive and removed the copy (we didn't delete it, for which we are glad). But the machine said there was no boot device available. How did you guys get it to boot from the original image file? The page linked to above says that a boot volume cannot be extended. Did we screw it up somehow?

Thanks for your help,
Jordan (and girlfriend Maeve, who tried to do some of this and has an electromagnetic field that breaks computers...)

[aplnub]

This does not work on FAT32 formatted systems. Bummer! I am trying to figure out how I have filled a 8 GB hdd with windows, office, and autocad. Seems impossible to me.

[filch]

So, if you have to go through all of this stuff, what actually does it mean by the "expanding" format of the drives? I guess I misunderstood what this meant because I thought it meant that the drives would expand as needed. Ony in a perfect world I guess.

The other thing to be aware of is that if you have really filled up your drives (waiting for it to expand o their own :-)) the convert program wil not be able to run until you free up some disk space because it needs some space to store temp files.

Dave

[koolaidman]

filch:

I think you may have slightly misunderstood the expanding drive's purpose.
The 'expanding' drive is designed to save disk space in the host system, not provide you with an infinitely expanding drive for your guest system.

Let's say you have created an expanding drive at the default size of 8GB. When you install windows, let's say it will use up about 1.5GB. With the expanding drive, the actual footprint of the .hdd file in Finder will be that same 1.5GB. As you add files and install programs, the drive file will expand to contain them, up to 8GB.

In contrast, if you have a 'fixed' drive at 8GB, Finder will read your .hdd file as 8GB, even if it's totally empty.

If you need your expanding drive to be larger than 8GB, you need to run ImageTool and increase the capacity of the image file, and then run the Gparted tool as mentioned in other posts in this thread, to actually expand the windows partition into the newly created empty space. When you restart windows it will detect the new space.

If your drive is totally full you still shouldn't have any problem running parallels' ImageTool on it to make it bigger; conversion isn't necessary.

[detayls]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

Windows should run chkdsk automatically.

This worked for me and I am very happy to be able to start using Parallels again. I hope that they start hiring support staff soon.

Thanks, Batman.

David

[detayls]

This does not work on FAT32 formatted systems. Bummer! I am trying to figure out how I have filled a 8 GB hdd with windows, office, and autocad. Seems impossible to me.

Batman's solution worked fine for me on an 8gb expanding drive formatted as FAT32 that I had increased to 12gb with ImageTool.

David:)

[Unshra]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

Windows should run chkdsk automatically.

Thank you Batman, this worked perfectly for my image and was very quick and painless.

-Unshra

[mkummer]

Well I tried all mentioned solutions for a principally simple problem: all did NOT work. Maybe the problems are occurring, if the virtual HD is a) expanding b) compressed or c) both. If I format one of those expanded disks, the get the full size...

mk

[a2dox@usa.net]

Finally!:D Looks like I did this all backwards, but it finally worked.

I'm using Windows 2000 and had to download diskpart.exe (which wasn't easy to find since Microsoft removed the original link - I found it at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0fd9788a-5d64-4f57-949f-ef62de7ab1ae&DisplayLang=en

Ran diskpart by double-clicking on it (rather than using CMD), and got through as far as "extend" - then it wouldn't let me type exit. Didn't know if it was done or what was going on. Closed the window, rebooted - and Windows still showed my drive at its original size (8 gb) instead of the new size (12 gb). Tried again by running diskpart through CMD - but it showed my drive as now being 12 gb (despite Windows saying otherwise). Decided to try the process again just to be sure - but got the message that diskpart could only be used on NTFS files. Mine were FAT32. Not sure how the drive got enlarged if diskpart wasn't supposed to work, but with Windows still not recognizing it, I wasn't making any progress.

Then tried gparted. It also said the drive was already enlarged (but that I'd used 10.17 gb - how could that be?) The free space it reported was the same as what Windows was reporting (1.54 gb).

Then read the posts on how to change to NTFS. Figured at this point it couldn't hurt. Tried it, rebooted, and - lo and behold - Windows now says my drive is 12 gb. (Okay, 11.7, with 5.34 gb free.) So apparently diskpart DID resize my FAT32 drive - it just wasn't recognized by Windows until it was changed to NTFS.

Thank you for all of the helpful posts on this. Lesson: Make sure you have NTFS first. It will save you beating your head against the wall several times.

[na9d]

Hey guys,

Need some help. For some reason I converted my partition to a Dynamic Disk. So Diskparted won't work on it. Looks like a nice program though - good to know about it!

I've tried the copy hdd image approach, but in Logical Disk Manager, it says the second drive is a "Foreign Disc." I try to import the foreign disc and it doesn't work. Nothing happens and the drive never mounts. It doesn't matter which image I boot from, the second is always said to be a foreign disc. I even tried converting from an expanding image to a fixed sized image and I get the same stuff.

So I can't load the second partition to resize it.

Help...

Is it because both show up as MasterBootRecord partitions?

Is there any way to completely copy everything into a Basic partition? I really don't want to set up Windoze from scratch again!

I'm running XP Pro SP2.

Thanks,

Jon

[tech_head]

Hi,

I run XP Pro SP2 and used the very first instructions in this thread.
Did what it said and I'm running fine.

tech

[jebworks]

thanks for posting this solution. What a tedious process.....just wasted about four hours of re-booting, copying etc. there really should be a better way of doing this and it definitely should be written into the Parallels manual.....

[ventrilqstman]

I ran live cd, and was a bit confused about how it worked, but had it convert my partition to nfts, and the resize options seemed to not work on fat 32.

I then rezized, shut down live cd, changed the cd mode back to normal, and tried to boot windows.
As soon as the boot starts however, text comes up that says this is not a bootable disk.

Did I ruin my partition??? Any ideas?

[rickgassko]

I went through Batman's process, but when I resized in Gparted (which would not let me make a partition bigger than 20 GB) I got an error.

When I try booting from the LiveCD iso again and run Gparted, it tells me my partition is 20GB but when I boot the VM to Windows XP, it still only lists it as 8GB.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[msimpson]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

You do have to resize the parallels disk image first. Also "Boot your VM" took me several tries to figure out: 1. Edit the settings of your virtual machine to add another CD drive. 2. Point this CD drive to the live cd iso. 3. Change the settings on your new CD drive so that it is the primary drive (0,1) and disable the actual CD drive. 4. Change the boot settings for the vm so that it boots from CD first. 5. Restart your vm.
The bootup has a step that takes several minutes to complete with no messages to the user, I thought it had hung the first time and restarted. Just wait it out, gparted will eventually appear.
Gparted ended by giving me an error that made me think I'd trashed the disk image, but when I restarted, everything worked and I had my 60GB drive (well fifty-something).
Finally, don't forget to reset your CD drive and boot settings.

[msimpson]

rickgassko,
Did you resize the disk image first in parallels to larger than 20GB?
Does Windows see 12GB of unformatted drive (Control Panel-->Administrative Tools-->Computer Management-->Disk Management)?

[NontrivialMatt]

Thanks to all who posted. I just successfully resized my NTFS virtual disk from 12G to 16G, then used the gparted boot disk to increase the Windows partition.

I definitely advise making a backup of your virtual disk, though, as something happened to the disk I tried to use gparted on - it said that I needed to run chkdsk /f on the disk before gparted could resize it. I did that, but then had something corrupted such that some apps would cause windows to crash on startup apparently due to an illegal memory access. I'm guessing that gparted got partway through the resize but didn't clean up correctly when it encountered my errors.

At any rate, I switched to my backup virtual disk, ran chkdsk /f on it myself before I started gparted, then gparted worked flawlessly!

[ghbrett]

I ran gparted and it said it couldn't complete the process with detail about NTFS journaling or sum such. But when i go to control panel I see that it did increase disk size to 15GB from the 4GB previously. But the explorer says the drive is only 4GB.

OK so I've run chkdsk /f and went back to gparted but it says I have a 15GB partition. By now I don't have the third backup I made. Any suggestions at this point?

[shrimpcreole]

Thank you .... well, I guess. Now, I have an even bigger problem. When I reboot, it tells me there is no boot disk available????? Help!!!!!

[rajahornstein]

Unfortunately, I found this thread too late. I already had expanded my disk from 8 to 20 gigs. I tried making a copy and adding it, but when I run DISKPART it tells me the second disk is not healthy. It says "failed" and it doesn't give a drive letter for it. I also tried using the XP storage management tool which gives this whole process a GUI, but it didn't help. I've tried copying more than once. Any ideas about how to proceed?

[iammattu]

The initial post worked great - to re-size a disk image.
I originally formatted my disk as Fat32 (for reason of supposed ease of communication with OSx and WinXP). Diskpart wouldn't expand the Fat32 drives though.
Fix:
Convert the Fat32 drives to NTFS first:
In the command prompt window, type: convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs
For example, typing convert C: /fs:ntfs would format drive D: with the ntfs format.
Do this for both drives (in my case c and e drives)

[blomasky]

Sort of followed the instructions! (I did not make the copy before resizing).

made the copy, added my resized VDisk as disk2, when I select volume 2 and type extend I get this error (get same error if I select volume 1)

Help!

Bruce

[pastrychef]

Nothing worked for me... I decided to try Partition Magic and it extended everything for me quickly and efficiently.

[33scottie33]

I resized the drive first and when that did not work, I found this thread. I followed the directions and everything worked fine. However, at first I could not boot to the drive after I removed the new drive from Parallels (not deleting it though). I then removed the old drive from Parallels (without deleting it) and then re-added it and it booted fine after that.:) :)

Maybe some of you are having errors because you did not select "Expanding disk" when the disk was first created. I would try converting it to an expanding disk first using the Parallels image tool.

[33scottie33]

I'm using a 3Ghz Mac Pro by the way. I also forgot to say 'thanks" for the original post!!!

[eweis]

Successfully executed the DISKPART steps on a XP VM to increase the HD from 8G to 16G. The host is a Mac Pro, 5G, 1T Raid 1. Many Thanks! :)

[sfw]

The set of instructions in the original post are basically correct for upsizing a Win XP NTFS virtual image. There are a few subtleties that might bear mentioning. For completeness, here are all the steps in the procedure that worked for me.

(0) For Mac users, at least, realize this all is a bit lame. While you might expect that you could simply use Parallels ImageTool.app to expand your virtual disk image, Win XP will not recognize this expansion automatically. (The absence of this information in the Parallels User Guide fosters this expectation.) Once the image has been expanded with ImageTool.app, Win XP *must* be told to extend it.

(1) Duplicate your Parallels virtual disk image file using the host operating system. On a Mac use the Finder; the location of the file is visible in the Parallels VM property page for you virtual WinXp machine in the "Hard Disk 1" resources section. Use Parallels' ImageTool.app to expand the original as desired.

The duplicate isn't just for a backup. Without using a live CD to boot the virtual machine (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), you will need to boot into Win XP from a volume that is *not* being extended. Thus:

(2) Using the Parallels VM property editor, add a new hard disk to the virtual machine. This hard disk should use the duplicate disk image created in (1). It will (initially, at least) be known by the resource name "Hard Disk 2".

(3) Arrange for Parallels to boot off the duplicate. I think this must be done by changing the "Connect to" setting in the "Advanced" tab of the "Hard Disk 2" in the Parallels property editor to "IDE 0:0". You will be asked if it is OK to swap; say yes. (Perhaps there is a less hacky way of changing the volume from which the virtual machine boots, but I wasn't able to find it.) Note that this has the side effect of changing the names of the resources: "Hard Disk 1" becomes "Hard Disk 2" and visa versa.

This step is necessary because, it seems, the Win XP's DISKPART is unable to extend the drive from which the virtual machine system is booted. Unfortunately, DISKPART does not give such an explicit error message but instead a general one, perhaps the same one that people are seeing when they attempt to extend a FAT32 volume. This may be the source of some confusion in this thread.

(4) Now start the virtual machine. Once the system is booted, it may say that new hardware detected suggests rebooting. I'm not sure if it is necessary, but go ahead and reboot.

(5) Once rebooted, from the Start menu use "Run" and type "DISKPART". In the resulting window type "list volume" (not "list volume*s*", DISKPART is fussy). Under the specifics described here, the volume to extend should appear as "Volume 2", letter "E", I think. This is a bit dicey, though, since the volume you booted from looks in all other ways identical to the volume you want to extend. Then type "select volume 2", and then "extend".

(6) Shutdown Win XP and clean up the mess made in (3), (2) and (1). In the Parallels VM property editor, set "Hard Disk 2" (remember the names swapped in (3)) to "IDE 0:0". Remove what then becomes known has "Hard Disk 2". Finally, if desired, delete the duplicate made in (1).

(7) When you restart your VM, it may again say that new hardware detected suggests rebooting. Again, while maybe not necessary, go ahead and reboot. Once rebooted you should see the Win XP now realizes that you disk is larger.

[dedjoh]

Thank you .... well, I guess. Now, I have an even bigger problem. When I reboot, it tells me there is no boot disk available????? Help!!!!!

Did you get an answer to this? The same thing just happened to me. Aarrggg!

[Karen]

Thank you so Much - I had resized the Windows XP, but still had the low memory message; it is now working perfectly - your step by step instructions were brilliant. Thank You!!! Karen

[Fiji]

THX SFW for the details. It would have taken me a while to figure that out. Probably I'd have had to read this whole thread. Anyway it worked great and I also have an awesome way to backup WindowsXP.



FT

[climber_rich]

Thks to all! Quick, easy and it worked like a charm.

[bgose]

You are THE MAN!

Thank you!

[plazmyd]

Everything is fine for me up to step 5. I run the Image Tools without any problem. I get a verification that the expansion was successful, but the .hdd file does not change in size, nor does it reflect a larger size when I run DISKPART. Am I supposed to 'Note which volume is your original, resized partition' by the changed size or by the 'system' next to the size?

I am going to just go ahead with the directions and see what happens, but I have a feeling that something is not right.

Matt

EDIT

Well, completed steps and got the "DiskPart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending."

Any ideas?

EDIT

Oops, apparently the letter C is no longer a number. When did that happen? I tried it with "1" with the same results.

EDIT again

It works! I had my .hdd files mixed up.

[volcs0]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

You do have to resize the parallels disk image first. Also "Boot your VM" took me several tries to figure out: 1. Edit the settings of your virtual machine to add another CD drive. 2. Point this CD drive to the live cd iso. 3. Change the settings on your new CD drive so that it is the primary drive (0,1) and disable the actual CD drive. 4. Change the boot settings for the vm so that it boots from CD first. 5. Restart your vm.
The bootup has a step that takes several minutes to complete with no messages to the user, I thought it had hung the first time and restarted. Just wait it out, gparted will eventually appear.
Gparted ended by giving me an error that made me think I'd trashed the disk image, but when I restarted, everything worked and I had my 60GB drive (well fifty-something).
Finally, don't forget to reset your CD drive and boot settings.

Terrific instructions.

I had my disc resized from 8 --> 10 gb in 5 minutes.

Thanks!

[jlhagins]

Solid. Many Thanks.

[DavidofOz]

Well done sfw! You provided very clear, detailed instructions. Thank you very much for posting the results of your journey of discovery!
I was stymied by my VM accessing only 8gb inside WinXP, but showing a size of 15gb outside in Mac OSX and Parallels controls. It was all a Windows disk partitioning issue - which cannot be solved on the boot/system disk. Using the power of Virtual disks made for an easy solution.

Thanks again.

Cheers

DavidofOz

[enthios]

For some reason, my paritions are FAT32, and the "extend" function only works on NTFS volumes. Are there any drawbacks to having NTFS, vs. FAT32? And how do I change the partition from FAT32 to NTFS?

[peterwor]

First of all, changing from FAT32 to NTFS is quite simple. From a command promt run the command "convert C: /fs:ntfs" (without the quotes obviously).

As far as the FAT32 vs NTFS issue there are multiple differences and arguements for each file system. In a nutshell NTFS is a very secure intelligent file system that allows lots of administrative perks for permissions, read/write capability, partition sizes etc.
In terms of OSX, ntfs is going to look like a read only disk (here are ways around this but very complicated) and OSX won't be able to write files directly to ntfs file systems, this isn't really too big of an issue since PD has the shared drive caapbility so its not really a big factor.
FAT32 is an extended, older, DOS file system that allowed drives to handle bigger partitions so they didn't have to be parsed up anymore. ntfs is, for the most part, a superior file system. FAT32 is more compatible with other OSes. This is a bigger factor with external drives that you might want to share between OSX and Windows, in that case the ntfs file system wil be read only to OSX and it may make sense to use a FAT32 file system.
This is all probably a lot more than you care to hear about so the decision is really a personal one, there are lots of tehnical perks for ntfs like security and partition sizes and sector sizes and all that stuff but for the most part people are using ntfs with XP cause its more secure etc etc.
Its worth noting that the technique described above for expanding your imahe size is based on having an ntfs file system.

Hope this helps,
Peter

[enthios]

Peter,
It helps very much thanks. My main concern is whether I will lose data when I run the convert. Do you know whether that will happen?

[kosh]

Convert preserves the contents of the volume when it performs the conversion.

[enthios]

I converted to NTFS then ran the sequence at the beginning of this post, to increase the size of the HDD. That all worked fine. However, when I then ran the boot up sequence on the newly re-sized drive, I got an error message from Parallels telling me that Windows was not installed on that drive and instructing me to re-install windows from the CD drive. When I did this, I received a message from the Windows installer saying that all applications, and possibly the My Documents folder, will be deleted. I don't want to delete everything! I also checked and Windows is indeed on that drive - it just appears as if Parallels is not "noticing" it.

What shall I do?

[jwilker]

Jeliker, great write up. Thanks!

[ilovetrucks]

Thanks for the Great instructions. I performed this on my XP VM and it worked perfect. I had been running out of Windows Virtual Memory and this cured all.

[mschool]

I've done steps in reverse order, but I can't understand why I am not able to extend my volume.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I ran Gnome Partition Editor and was attempted to extend the volume to 80 GB
When I hit "Apply", I get an error message that said that the operation could not be applied to the disc.

I understand that WinXP must me told to extend the volume. However, when I created a copy of my HDD and ran DISKPART, and got this message:

DiskPart failed to extend the volume.
Please make sure the volume is valid for extending.

Volume # Letter Fs Type Size Status Info
Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 78 GB Healthy System
*Volume 2 E NTFS Partition 78 GB Healthy

My VM runs great (at 8GB) I just can't extend it to 80 GB.

[enthios]

STILL WAITING FOR A SOLUTION:

I converted to NTFS then ran the sequence at the beginning of this post, to increase the size of the HDD. That all worked fine. However, when I then ran the boot up sequence on the newly re-sized drive, I got an error message from Parallels telling me that Windows was not installed on that drive and instructing me to re-install windows from the CD drive. When I did this, I received a message from the Windows installer saying that all applications, and possibly the My Documents folder, will be deleted. I don't want to delete everything! I also checked and Windows is indeed on that drive - it just appears as if Parallels is not "noticing" it.

What shall I do?

[prock]

I've spent a fair amount of time attempting to resize a windows partition, have emailed tech support and have the following conclusions:
-for some users, the instructions listed on this form will work fine. For other users, such as myself, the instructions do not work and I also get the "unable to extend" error message. This has occurred whether I use the Gparted disk image to boot from and gpart or use my HDD disk image and the diskpart utility that comes with windows.

-according to tech support, for unclear reasons, machines that are configured the same, with the same build of OSX and Parallels may or may not behave similarly when trying to use these instructions

-My solution was to download and run Partition Magic. Cost $70 but resolved my problem and was a more cost effective solution, for me.

-Parallels tech support is aware that an increasing number of users are experiencing this problem. The default installation of windows (express installation) only results in an 8 GB partition which, as people use Windows under parallels, probably is not sufficient.

I recommend trying Partition Magic if you cannot get these instructions to work. Hopefully, Parallels will develop other solutions in the meantime.

PR

[Dreamy]

I've spent a fair amount of time attempting to resize a windows partition, have emailed tech support and have the following conclusions:
-for some users, the instructions listed on this form will work fine. For other users, such as myself, the instructions do not work and I also get the "unable to extend" error message. This has occurred whether I use the Gparted disk image to boot from and gpart or use my HDD disk image and the diskpart utility that comes with windows.

-according to tech support, for unclear reasons, machines that are configured the same, with the same build of OSX and Parallels may or may not behave similarly when trying to use these instructions

-My solution was to download and run Partition Magic. Cost $70 but resolved my problem and was a more cost effective solution, for me.

-Parallels tech support is aware that an increasing number of users are experiencing this problem. The default installation of windows (express installation) only results in an 8 GB partition which, as people use Windows under parallels, probably is not sufficient.

I recommend trying Partition Magic if you cannot get these instructions to work. Hopefully, Parallels will develop other solutions in the meantime.

PR
I agree with you tried all their solutions but nothing worked just have to it all over. Can't see how they make the default only 8gig thats totally ridiculous if you are doing windows with programs like adobe and corel. Hope they sell enough to ge tech support.

[enthios]

I agree with you tried all their solutions but nothing worked just have to it all over. Can't see how they make the default only 8gig thats totally ridiculous if you are doing windows with programs like adobe and corel. Hope they sell enough to ge tech support.

I used LiveCD by GParted and it worked perfectly. No need (for me) to use the method described at the beginning of this thread (which for me, expanded the drive but - for me - made it impossible to boot from, which - for me - defeated the purpose).

Note I say, that method did not work for me. It did work for others. But GParted DID work for me. I'm a bit surprised that something like this has not been built into Parallels. Also, I still do not interstand what the "expanding disc" option is. Mine certanly never expanded!

Parallels is a great piece of software. It's just not easy for the mainstream to configure and manage.

[Dreamy]

I used LiveCD by GParted and it worked perfectly. No need (for me) to use the method described at the beginning of this thread (which for me, expanded the drive but - for me - made it impossible to boot from, which - for me - defeated the purpose).

Note I say, that method did not work for me. It did work for others. But GParted DID work for me. I'm a bit surprised that something like this has not been built into Parallels. Also, I still do not interstand what the "expanding disc" option is. Mine certanly never expanded!

Parallels is a great piece of software. It's just not easy for the mainstream to configure and manage.
Thanks but Gparted still did not work for me I am getting frustrated and ready to do everything over again. It shows 128gig in my Vm but when I go to gparted it still says 8g and no way to extend it. I had already extended the drive to get a second drive and only those 2 are there with no way to expand it.

[mschool]

I had the same experience with Gparted, and decided to trash my HDD and started over again.
According to Parallels Tech Support, the version of GParted I was using had "a bug" and could not get Wondows to expand from 8GB to 80GB.

When I re-installed Windows XP, I specified "custom" install as opposed to "express". I was able to configure my VM for an 80GB HDD and 1 GB of memory (I have 250GB iMac with 2GB of internal memory). The Windows install took a little longer (kind of the way it was before the 1970 build) and it worked.

I got an 80GB VM without using Gpart or DISKPART or needed to purchase a partition SW package. BUT, I had to trash my VM to get here.

In hindsight, I attempted to install Windows around 10 times, I created and trashed the same number of HDD's...but I look at Parallels as one of my most important SW componants, if I am going to run a production PC on a Mac. IMHO:)

[enthios]

I had the same experience with Gparted, and decided to trash my HDD and started over again.
According to Parallels Tech Support, the version of GParted I was using had "a bug" and could not get Wondows to expand from 8GB to 80GB.

When I re-installed Windows XP, I specified "custom" install as opposed to "express". I was able to configure my VM for an 80GB HDD and 1 GB of memory (I have 250GB iMac with 2GB of internal memory). The Windows install took a little longer (kind of the way it was before the 1970 build) and it worked.

I got an 80GB VM without using Gpart or DISKPART or needed to purchase a partition SW package. BUT, I had to trash my VM to get here.

In hindsight, I attempted to install Windows around 10 times, I created and trashed the same number of HDD's...but I look at Parallels as one of my most important SW componants, if I am going to run a production PC on a Mac. IMHO:)
Wow. Sorry to hear Gparted didn't work. It solved my problem immediately. I'm what your specific problem with it was? From my side, I only wanted to expand the size to 16GB so maybe that is why it worked for me. Why don't you try a smaller increment as a test?

[mschool]

Wow. Sorry to hear Gparted didn't work. It solved my problem immediately. I'm what your specific problem with it was? From my side, I only wanted to expand the size to 16GB so maybe that is why it worked for me. Why don't you try a smaller increment as a test?
I followed the PDF instructions from Parallel's Tech support on Gpart.

When I pulled the green bar across the entire screen, and hit "apply" I got an error message that Gpart could not execute the command. Perhaps enlarging the VM to the full 80GB was a mistake, maybe I should have tried a partial. I tried to make it smaller in Gpart, but got the same error. I ran Parallels Compressor and sqeezed more space, then tried again in GPart, and still could not extend the partition sucessfully. I could not figure out how to save the error messages, so I send screen shots to Parallels Tech support.

They e-mailed me this response: ""It looks like it was some bug in the Gnome's work that didn't allow Windows to see new partition in proper way.""

[prock]

I Also, I still do not interstand what the "expanding disc" option is. Mine certainly never expanded! .

Regarding the "expanding" HDD image option....

2 different aspects to HDD size. The first is that of the size of the partition that Windows "believes" (i.e has been fooled by Parallels) has been allocated to it. That is what this thread has been discussing. The partition size sets the maximum limit for the HDD image.

The second issue is the actual, physical, size of the HDD image on the Mac side. That is where the expanding option comes into play. So, for example, on my machine the actual HDD size is a little under 8 GB but the partition is set at 15 GB. With the expanding option the HDD will grow until it meets the partition limit.

This is a good feature of parallels. It only uses as much disk space on the mac size as is actually needed. That way, you don't need to unnecessarily;y allocate extra space to the HDD image.

PR

[Dreamy]

Thanks to you all for your help I maybe should have tried a smaller increment but I have a 500g and wanted the max for my windows as i have all the Adobe programs plus Corel and others as I am a photographer. So I ended up just had to redo the whole thing took me all day but worth it 100%. I just need the space to put all my programs. Thanks again guys great help.

[jkirshb]

Ok I followed the instructions to upgrade my virtual machines memory to 20gigs but everytime I start windows, the Control Panel information about my computer tells me that the there is only 6.something gigs available. I am trying to install a program that is 8 gigs and I can't figure out why Windows hard drive capacity is so small when the virtual machine tells me there is a total of 20gigs available. Do I need to re-insall windows now? Please advise.

[tlev]

I've tried in vain to get this to work. I keep getting the low disk space on c drive error. I've re-set the hard disk to 64g, have tried to run the gparted iso- it runs but doesnt complete the final step. When I click activate, it does it;s thing for a couple minutes then comes back with an error that the change in partition did not take place. Any suggestions? (This is extremely frustrating. Also, I dont see any extremely large temp or other files that I can delete)

Thanks

tom

[clindner]

Has anyone been able to get this to work for Vista?

I was apparently corrupting the disk when using DISKPART in Vista. I don't know it was a Windows Protection thing or perhaps something else. I also had problems using Gpart, since I am working on the machine remotely via VNC.

So, I booted my copied drive image, after increasing the size via Image Tools, but before doing anything else. On a whim, I decided to try the Disk Management tool, and immediately discovered it has an Extend wizard that, in a couple of clicks, adds the new space to the boot drive.

I would assume that the same method could also be used in Windows XP, and possibly 2000 as well, based on my past experience with the Disk Management tool. [EDIT: It has been noted that the boot drive can only be extended in Vista, and not in previous versions.]

[EDIT: Presumably, the initial method described in this thread will not work in Vista. However, this is OK, because the method described above works well, and doesn't require rebooting. I recommend making a backup of your image before you start just to be safe.]

Hope this helps!

-Curt

[tlev]

Where do I find the Disk Management Tool?

[clindner]

Disk Management can be located a couple of ways in XP:

1. Right click on My Computer, choose Manage, and you should see it under Storage on the left
2. Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management then under Storage on the left

Hope that helps! [EDIT: Although it probably won't, as indicated in the message below this one.]

[palter]

Has anyone been able to get this to work for Vista?

So, just after I posted this message initially, I booted my copied drive image, after increasing the size via Image Tools, but before doing anything else. On a whim, I decided to try the Disk Management tool, and immediately discovered that it has an Extend wizard that, in a couple of clicks, adds the new space to the boot drive.

I would assume that the same method could also be used in Windows XP, and possibly 2000 as well, based on my past experience with the Disk Management tool.

The ability to expand the boot partition is new with Vista. It's not available in Disk Management on either XP or 2000.

[clindner]

The ability to expand the boot partition is new with Vista. It's not available in Disk Management on either XP or 2000.

I've edited my previous messages in the thread to clarify that it only works with Vista. Thanks for the info!

[tlev]

Any other thoughts on how to increase the partition size? It would take me days to reload my stuff if I have to erase the drive

I've run gparted several times and it never finishes. I always get an error message at the end although it seems that the partition was expanded. Nevertheless, when running the vm, I continue to get the low disk space message. For that matter, I cannot run paralles tools. When I select install parallels tools, nothing happens. I cannot mount the iso disk image or get it to run manually. I've contated parallels support and still waiting for an answer.

Thanks

[joem]

If gparted doesn't work, you may have a corrupted partition since it's worked for me every time I've used it.

You can expand the image, which leaves you with the same size partition, and some unused space on your virtual drive. You can create another partition in that unused space and use it as a D drive. You can also create a new .hdd file and use that as a D drive. The new .hdd can be any size you like.

[am3n3]

I just found out about this forum today (thanks Google!) because I was getting no joy explaining increasing the size of my Windows partition to Parallels' email support (sorted w/Ben now).

Batman's instructions back on post #20 worked for me running Windows 2000 as my Guest OS. Previously I ran Image Tool to increase the VM's size, and ran diskmgmt.mmc to newly available space as unallocated space. Before running gparted as a boot ISO I made sure the extra space was marked as unallocated, and that my disk was formatted to NTFS.

His instructions worked as-is; couldn't be simpler. My Windows is now a happy 2GB partition! :D

[Mike Boreham]

Someone earlier mentioned Partition Magic as another way of doing the resize.

I did it without any trouble using Acronis Disk Director, using a bootable disk created by Acronis Disk Director.

Mike

[kabz]

I used the Parallels Image Tool to create a 20 Gig expanding drive, then used the gpartd iso and had no problems.

Windows sees the 20 Gig drive. Woooo !!!!

[lepremier]

I'm having a problem running the "diskpart" utilty on my windows XP vm. When I run it, a window opens, a cursor flashes for a while then the window closes again....any ideas please?
Thanks

[thetravellor]

Any idea how I would do this for Solaris 10?

The default install created a 4GB / and an 8GB pretty much uselless /export/home

/ is at 96% after the default install.

[Wisdomdog]

I followed all the directions but I get
Disk 0
Basic
19.53
Online

Then it gives me two Partitions
The first I installed was a Typical Virtual Machine
Patsmacpc (C.) drive
7.80 GB NTFS
Healthy (System

I then changed over to a Custom Virtual Machine as I need more room on the PC side
The second partition says
11.73 GB
Unallocated

When I get to the volume it only shows me Vollume 1 my originial partition not the unallocated one
I then select volume 1 and it selects it
I ten put in extend and it says" make sure the olume is valid for extending and I don't know what to do next I ran out of choices

Please help

[Wisdomdog]

what is the gpartd iso

[Wisdomdog]

I want to thank the people on this forum for the excellent instruction on resizing the partition. I have been trying to do it for two week. Microsoft said contact Mac. Mac said contact PartitionExpert by Acronis but they could guarantee it would work in six months.

Thanks to the tow instructions to use diskpart and then the including what the two vollumes looked like I finally did it. I love the mac and just bought a new one after years of hell on the pc.

I love parallels as well. I have been sitting at this machine for 3 weeks learning and changing over from pc to mac in Cancun. I think I will go to happy hour finally.

Seriously, I truly appreciate it and I suppose I can do the same thing if I want to increase again. I want to thank the kindness that will now allow me to throw my pc's out.

I love being back on a mac after 10 rotten year of pc. I started a magazine totallly produced on a mac plus in 1987 which lead to a publishing company, an advertising agency, and and internet company which we sold in 1998. Because of accounting and our other businesses I had to switch to a PC and I have missed my macs and spent years bitching about my pc's.

Thank you so much - I feel like I just got out of rehab.

Wisdomdog

[gilles]

Great!
Thank you very much

[Daisiechain]

what is the gpartd iso?

What is this please?

[joem]

what is the gpartd iso?

What is this please?

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

[Daisiechain]

Thank you for your quick response. I'm not sure if this is what I need to do or if I'm doing something else wrong. Windows was setup in Parallels as a 8gig hard drive. I am out of space and urgently need to install an application for work. There's not really very much I can uninstall to make room. So I went to the Image tool in the Parallels folder and I increased the size of the drive to 20gig. The change shows up in the Property sheet next to the Hard Drive property but when I actually go into Windows it's still showing up as 8gig and I can't install the app. I did this just like the manual said to do it but I can't get it to work.

Do I need to do this gpartd thing? There are many posts here. I'm not sure which one is the best to follow.

~~~~~~~~~
Macbook Pro 15" Intel Core Duo 2, 2gig Ram, 120gig hard drive.

[joem]

When you expand a virtual disk with the image tool, you do the equivalent of adding a platter or two to a physical disk. This is not something any current software is ready for, so what you have is your original partition, and some free space. At this point, you have three choices:

1) Create a new virtual disk and attach it as a D drive to your VM. You will have to create the .hdd, attach it, and then format it and assign a drive letter in Windows before you can use it.

2) In Windows, use the logical disk manager to create a partition in the newly created unused disk space on your current virtual drive, and mount that as D.

3) Use GPARTED (not gpartd, which probably doesn't exist) to expand your current C partition to fill the unused space.

My choice was first 3, and when I ran out of space again, 1.

Decide based on your unique needs.

[Daisiechain]

Joem,

If I do #1, which sounds like it would be the safest...how do I do that? I'm not sure how to attach it and format it as a drive letter in Windows..

If I do #3..does GPARTED get run in the Mac system or the Windows system? I looked through their forum and FAQ and couldn't find anything pertaining to Parallels.

Thanks.

[joem]

#1) RTFM page 114

#2) Download the live CD, and attach the image to your virtual CD drive (RTFM for directions). Set the boot sequence to CD first, and the CD drive to 0:0 and the virtual HDD to 0:1 (see the manual for directions). Start the VM and watch it boot UNIX. Accept all the defaults. When it finishes booting, follow the on screen directions to start gparted, then follow the on screen directions to expand the partition.

There are more detailed instructions in other posts in this thread.

[stevegallager]

hi guys,
i'm new to the world of mac and found a lot of the posts hard to understand.........so here's how i increased my virtual drive
I first made a copy of the virtual harddrive and put it somewhere safe just in case things went wrong.
Then using parallels image tool i increased the drive from a 8 gig to 25 gig, it took about ten mins for the mac to increase it.
Then i started the virtual machine which i have xp with service pack 2 installed on it.
When windows has started i checked the proporties in my computer but it still said i only had 8 gig!
so i installed a program called partition magic 8, this very simply increased the partiton from 8 to 25 in a matter of seconds, then i re-booted....................job done !

[mglerner]

the gparted method worked for me, but i did have to use the older iso (0.2.5).

WinXP Pro, 2GHz MacBook Pro, NTFS.

[judisohn]

After realizing I was down to the last 300MB on my 8 GB virtual hard disk, I began the process of figuring out, and then executing the increase of my vm to 12 GB. About an hour later, it's done and it's working fine. I ended up following sfw's directions and DISKPART worked without a hitch.

I don't know about anyone else, but all I want to do is give Mac OS X a great big hug.

What a P.I.T.A. Now that I look back it was easy, but on first read...yikes. Took me a few times through until I felt confident enough to actually do it.

The Parallels folks really have to build in a wizard to do that from start to finish...it's not for the weak.

[ciparis]

The set of instructions in the original post are basically correct for upsizing a Win XP NTFS virtual image. There are a few subtleties that might bear mentioning. For completeness, here are all the steps in the procedure that worked for me.

(0) For Mac users, at least, realize this all is a bit lame. While you might expect that you could simply use Parallels ImageTool.app to expand your virtual disk image, Win XP will not recognize this expansion automatically. (The absence of this information in the Parallels User Guide fosters this expectation.) Once the image has been expanded with ImageTool.app, Win XP *must* be told to extend it.

(1) Duplicate your Parallels virtual disk image file using the host operating system. On a Mac use the Finder; the location of the file is visible in the Parallels VM property page for you virtual WinXp machine in the "Hard Disk 1" resources section. Use Parallels' ImageTool.app to expand the original as desired.

The duplicate isn't just for a backup. Without using a live CD to boot the virtual machine (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), you will need to boot into Win XP from a volume that is *not* being extended. Thus:

(2) Using the Parallels VM property editor, add a new hard disk to the virtual machine. This hard disk should use the duplicate disk image created in (1). It will (initially, at least) be known by the resource name "Hard Disk 2".

(3) Arrange for Parallels to boot off the duplicate. I think this must be done by changing the "Connect to" setting in the "Advanced" tab of the "Hard Disk 2" in the Parallels property editor to "IDE 0:0". You will be asked if it is OK to swap; say yes. (Perhaps there is a less hacky way of changing the volume from which the virtual machine boots, but I wasn't able to find it.) Note that this has the side effect of changing the names of the resources: "Hard Disk 1" becomes "Hard Disk 2" and visa versa.

This step is necessary because, it seems, the Win XP's DISKPART is unable to extend the drive from which the virtual machine system is booted. Unfortunately, DISKPART does not give such an explicit error message but instead a general one, perhaps the same one that people are seeing when they attempt to extend a FAT32 volume. This may be the source of some confusion in this thread.

(4) Now start the virtual machine. Once the system is booted, it may say that new hardware detected suggests rebooting. I'm not sure if it is necessary, but go ahead and reboot.

(5) Once rebooted, from the Start menu use "Run" and type "DISKPART". In the resulting window type "list volume" (not "list volume*s*", DISKPART is fussy). Under the specifics described here, the volume to extend should appear as "Volume 2", letter "E", I think. This is a bit dicey, though, since the volume you booted from looks in all other ways identical to the volume you want to extend. Then type "select volume 2", and then "extend".

(6) Shutdown Win XP and clean up the mess made in (3), (2) and (1). In the Parallels VM property editor, set "Hard Disk 2" (remember the names swapped in (3)) to "IDE 0:0". Remove what then becomes known has "Hard Disk 2". Finally, if desired, delete the duplicate made in (1).

(7) When you restart your VM, it may again say that new hardware detected suggests rebooting. Again, while maybe not necessary, go ahead and reboot. Once rebooted you should see the Win XP now realizes that you disk is larger.

Quoted for reference. This is the "easy" method. No third-party downloads needed, it just works.

[nickels]

Did every thing you said but got an error:

"Diskpart failed to extend the volume
Please make sure the volume is valid for extending"


Any thoughts?

UPDATE: Installed Partition Magic and this worked a treat!

[hhoffmeister]

Is there a way to get the property page back? When I start parallels it automatically starts windows.

Thanks

[easum]

I want to Thank YOU also for this post - saved me hours of trying to figure out how to do this (and I never would have not being a Windows Guru)!!! THANKS again!!!

[veggiedude]

"UPDATE: Installed Partition Magic and this worked a treat!"

And where does one get this program?

[hassiman]

Hi,

Followed the instructions and increased the vm disk size from 6GB to 28GB.

When I rebooted I got the message that the system could not find the OS.. please insert disk.

Woe is me...:eek: where did I go wrong... what can I do to fix this?:confused:

[joem]

veggiedude: You google it and buy it.

hassiman: What EXACTLY did you do to get to where you are now. "It doesn't work" gives us little to go on. BTW, I hope you have a backup of the original so that when you do fid out what went wrong, you can start over.

[hassiman]

Well I hate to admit it but I started playing around with the config after the XP VM would not restart and went in and instad of pointing the system at the Windows1.HDD file I went down another level and pointed it at the .PVS file and Viola... it booted... asked for a re-boot and when that was dome the C:\ NTFS drive showed a size of just under 28GB in size. So despite my best efforts to screw the process up.. it worked.:D

Now... Should I initiate Parallels Compressor feature... or is it too late now that I have upsized the VM HD?

Thanks.:D

[joem]

Congratulations.

If it's an expanding HD, Compressor will shrink it to whatever it needs for data. Be sure to make a backup first in case Compressor scrambles it. Backups have saved me more times than I can count, and I always make one before trying something I might not be able to undo.

[hassiman]

Joe,

I looked at the properties and it does indicate that the drive is set as expanding.

I did though just notice that under attachment options Connnect to had read IDE 1:0 but it now reads IDE 0:0:eek:

Is this a problem? System seems to be working OK....:confused:

[joem]

If it's working OK, then it isn't a problem. I haven't played with it lately, but at one point if the boot device wasn't either a floppy or device 0:0, it wouldn't boot. This meant that setting the boot device meant both changing the boot order and making sure the boot device was 0:0 and any other IDE device was somewhere else. This might have been fixed by now.

Normal setup is hard disk on 0:0 and CD on 1:0. A second hard disk is typically 0:1. The reason for this has to do with PC hardware limitations that caused a slowdown if the hard disk and CD were both on the same channel.

[mikesims10670]

I mistakenly converted my C drive from a basic to a dynamic disk and tried to expand it into the unused space AFTER I had run the image tool and expanded the size of the virtual hard drive. This was not successful ... neither was the subsequent attempt at executing the sugestions within this post. Therefore, I decided to try something a little more traditional:

Create a new hard drive (larger than the existing C drive) and mount it on IDE port 1:0 - this drive is only temporary and will be deleted later.

Next, boot into windows and format that drive as NTFS (using quick format).

Fire up Windows Backup, and perform a complete backup of the entire system to a file on that new hard drive - I tried to make a recovery floppy at the end of the backup using a blank, freshly formatted virtual floppy disk, but I was not successful ... that would have been a nice way to proceed, but since it didnt work, I didnt use that method of recovery.

Once the backup is complete, shut down windows, create a new hard drive (this will be your working hard drive when you are done, so make it whatever size you need in the final result) - mount the hard drive on IDE 0:0 - this new empty hard drive will displace your current running hard drive which is OK, because if everything goes alright, you will no longer need the current bootable windows hard drive.

To avoid any confusion during the next step, remove the hard drive from the VM which you used to store the backup file. This will leave your VM with a single empty hard drive (a clean slate).

install windows on the new hard drive - dont worry about any special configuration options ... dont join any domains, and dont activate windows when its all done.

after windows has been installed, mount the hard drive that you used to store the backup on IDE 1:0

Run windows backup, then choose restore - use the backup file you created when you made the backup earlier ... overwrite everything! Reboot ... your done.

Now you can delete the hard drive you used for the backup and the old (unusable) windows hard drive.

Mike

[dennylca]

First post trying to solve something that has been eating away at me. I've been able to follow the steps in everyone else's posts, but when trying to format my new partition in my VM (the second step after using the Image Tool), I keep getting an error that I can't format the drive.

I'm running Windows XP pre service pack, and trying to upgrade to the larger size without having to redo all of my installations. Please advise if anyone has had this problem. Do I need to upgrade to the newer service packs from XP?

Thanks in advance.

[lucerodesign1]

Thanks for saving my arse! This is exactly the procedure that should be in the manual. A very elegant solution for a potentially big problem...nice work!

[marone]

Does All Of This Have Anything To Do With The Windows Booting Up And Being Too Big To See In The Partition Window??? How Do I Fix That Problem?? I Only See 1/4 Of The Screen. It Was Running Fine And Then All Of Sudden Performed This Way> Oh, Sorry For The Caps My Pc At Work Is Broken At Work.

[joem]

Does All Of This Have Anything To Do With The Windows Booting Up And Being Too Big To See In The Partition Window??? How Do I Fix That Problem?? I Only See 1/4 Of The Screen. It Was Running Fine And Then All Of Sudden Performed This Way> Oh, Sorry For The Caps My Pc At Work Is Broken At Work.
No, this discussion has nothing to do with your problem.

Keyboards start at $12, and $20 will get you a pretty fancy one.

Once you get a working keyboard, start your VM, right click on a clear area of the Windows desktop, select "settings" from the context menu, and reduce the Windows resolution to something that will fit on your screen.

This has been discussed in this forum several times in the past.

[ircoha]

I successfully resized my Windows 2003 installation today using the following process.


1 Copy the HDD drive image file and rename
2 Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file
3 Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk
4 Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART
View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition
Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.
Enter the command extend
Enter the command exit
Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile.


I don't know if DISKPART can be used on Windows XP, etc. but I know that you can download it from Microsoft. Google diskpart windows download.

As mentioned, this worked for me though I cannot guarantee that this will work in all situations.

My copy does not copy as a bootable copy, how is that done please?

[ircoha]

Just to say I found the answer in page 7 as posted by ciparis on jan 4

to whom we should be grateful

[leejsci]

Dear Parallels Warriors

Even though I have 32G VM (partition to 12G (as C) and 20G (as D) on Window side)
I just setup a share folder and map drive (as H drive) and drive property shows me that all free spaces on my 120G HD is available. I have moved my document folder to H drive on window side. So incase my VM goes bad, my files are still there in the OSX share folder….:D

[owenkc]

Open the Finder, and navigate to your VM directory, typically ~/library/parallels/vmname
where ~ is your home directory, and vmname is the name you gave your VM.
Click on the .hdd file you find there, then right click (or control-click with a one button mouse) on it and select duplicate from the context menu. When the copy is complete, rename the copy to the name of your choice.

OK, I've just come to the point of doing this. I did the above, then used DISKPART to resize the copied drive. When I tried to boot off that Windows (WinXP PRO SP2 on a Mac Mini) said that there was no boot program on the extended drive.

So, what did I do wrong, please?

Puzzled,

Dave

[cualexander]

Am I missing something here?

I had 140 megs free space and it wouldn't let me boot. Used the parallels image tool to resize the image to give me about 300 megs more space, since I was just going to copy the large file off the VM to my desktop anyhow.

Booted up Windows XP. Had the new space.

Is there something else I need to do? I'm confused by all these steps.

[alegoje]

Just wanted to quickly share my experience. I ran the Image Tool program, located with the main parallels program (I say this because it was not clear to me at the beginning) and after realizing that the first time i entered 20 as opposed to 20000 for 20 gigs the utility run succesfully. Then, in windows xp since I have it I installed Partition Magic 7.01, which failed to increase the partition size. It did detect the new hard disk space though. I attempted merging the in PM as oppose to expanding and it seemed to me it was going to do it but requested to free space on C: so discontinued this process and used Batman's Gparted procedure which worked perfectly for me. Thanks to all for a valuable thread!

[tnish_usgs]

Am I missing something here?

I had 140 megs free space and it wouldn't let me boot. Used the parallels image tool to resize the image to give me about 300 megs more space, since I was just going to copy the large file off the VM to my desktop anyhow.

Booted up Windows XP. Had the new space.

Is there something else I need to do? I'm confused by all these steps.

Like cualexander, I'm confused too. I'm running PD build 3120 RC1 on a macpro. Originally, I set the hdd to 8 gb and used Image Tool to increase the size of the hdd to 20 gb. After booting into XP sp2, the harddrive is shown to have 20 gb storage.

Does the this build of PD automatically address all the steps outlined by ciparis, sfw, and jeliker?

[NJRonbo]

I am also using the latest RC 3120 on a Mac Pro and having
problems maximizing my hard drive and memory.

Mac Pro; 4GB Ram; 500GB Hard Drive

Can someone kindly instruct me how to max out all
the necessary VIDEO and MEMORY areas effectively if
I want 2GB RAM and 250GB hard drive space for Parallels?

Note: I tried putting 250,000MB in the Hard Disk settings
but it was much too high a setting for Parallels to handle.
It will not let me put in anything above 128,000MB. On
the Memory end, it will not let me go above 1500MB.

[jp20r]

I successfully resized my Windows 2003 installation today using the following process.


Copy the HDD drive image file and rename
Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file
Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk
Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART
View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition
Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.
Enter the command extend
Enter the command exit
Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile.


I don't know if DISKPART can be used on Windows XP, etc. but I know that you can download it from Microsoft. Google diskpart windows download.

As mentioned, this worked for me though I cannot guarantee that this will work in all situations.
Hi,
trying to use yr advice , but from point 4, cant go further than point 4: Start --> CMD --> Diskpart: List the Volume, I have
- volume 1 E NTFS Partition 7995 Healthy System
- volume 2 C NTFS Partition 7995 Healthy Page File

when I selct volume (1) and type Extend, it says : no volume selected ....
BTW what means Page File for vol C ?
' . did I miss something. thks for yr help. JP





( MBP 2.16 Ghz; core duo; 2GB, 160G HD 10.4.8
Win2K Pro, 612 Meg RAM Build 1970

[myk007]

Hi,

I am trying to expand the size of my Win2k virtual machine from 8GB to 16GB

1. I make a copy of my original .hdd and then i resize my original .hdd to 16GB using image tools.
2. Next I make the copy hard disk 1 and the original resized hdd my hard disk 2.
3. I boot up my virtual machine and run diskpart
4. I run the command list volume:


C:\PROGRA~1\RESOUR~1>Diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 5.1.3553
Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MM-WIN

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 D CD-ROM 0 B
Volume 1 C Local Disk NTFS Partition 7985 MB Healthy System

DISKPART>

I cannot see my new 16GB Volume. Is that okay?

5. I ran list disk to get the following:
DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 7993 MB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 16 GB 16 GB

DISKPART>

Here i could see both disks.

6. So, I thought maybe i need to select disk 2 and then list volume to see if my 16G volume shows up:
DISKPART> select Disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------
Volume 0 D CD-ROM 0 B
Volume 1 C Local Disk NTFS Partition 7985 MB Healthy System

DISKPART>

I still could not see my 16GB volume.

So is it okay that I cannot see my 16 GB volume?

Thanks.

[pambyard]

Hi everyone, thank you for posting solutions that seem to work for almost everyone but me. I tried the gparted fix, but got an error at the end, no dice. Tried diskpart, say to check my disk is valid to extend. Tried both solutions 3 times! I am leary of trying Partition Magic not only because of the $80, but I'm not sure I have enough space on my 8G disk to install it. I assume it has to be installed on the guest system? At the VERY LEAST, parallels documentation should caution us to think ahead when allocating disk size because 8G is a joke, and this has cost me countless hours of frustration.:mad:

[joem]

Hi everyone, thank you for posting solutions that seem to work for almost everyone but me. I tried the gparted fix, but got an error at the end, no dice. Tried diskpart, say to check my disk is valid to extend. Tried both solutions 3 times! I am leary of trying Partition Magic not only because of the $80, but I'm not sure I have enough space on my 8G disk to install it. I assume it has to be installed on the guest system? At the VERY LEAST, parallels documentation should caution us to think ahead when allocating disk size because 8G is a joke, and this has cost me countless hours of frustration.:mad:
Try this:
Create a new VM with a disk of the size you want and install your OS. If it's XP, don't bother activating.

Make a copy of your current virtual HD.

Attach the copy to your original VM as drive D, and the newly created virtual HD as drive E

Boot the original VM and copy all files from D to E.

Detach the third drive (E).

Boot the new VM and test. All your files and programs should be there. If they are and it works, back it up (important), and then delete your original VM.

Problem solved.

[heisiam]

Attach the copy to your original VM as drive D, and the newly created virtual HD as drive E


Could you please explain exactly how you "attach" the VM's??? Thanks :)

[heisiam]

I followed the directions in ciparis post and also the joems post to attach the copy of my original VM as drive D and the newly created virtual HD as drive E but had the same problem with both...
once Windows loads up it find the new hardware and then proceeds to crash... the error screen goes by so fast I can't see what it says. For some reason I cannot add any new HD to my virtual machine... HELP!

I'm on an imac

[OddyOh]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

Windows should run chkdsk automatically.

Just wanted to add my two cents. I tried booting the GParted 0.3.3-6 (downloaded today (Feb 25 2007) live CD, but I just got a black screen, so I let it sit for about 10 minutes, then gave up.

Then I downloaded version 2.5 of the live CD, and it boots right up, quickly and painlessly. Not sure what's changed since 2.5, but I'm glad they still have it up for download!

The rest of these instructions worked great for me! Resized my WinXP C: drive from 8GB to 12GB. I had resized it using Parallel's Image Tool, but that only changes the file, not the way Windows reads it!

Thanks to everyone for their input on this thread, good luck!

Mac OS 10.4.8, 24" iMac, 2GB RAM, 2.16Ghz, 500GB HD
WinXP Home SP2 via Parallels, w00t!

[2os]

However when I use diskpart and do a list volume only the CD and Hard Drive 1 show up.

The interesting part is I can see two hard drive in my parallels sytem tray and when I mouse over them they show the appropriate files listed per instructions, any ideas?

In reading through the forum I did not see any problem reported like mine.

Please help.:(

2os

[Hugh Watkins]

I find that small is beautiful with parallels WinXP Sp2

VM memory 512 mb out of 2 gb

hard disk 32000 mb
runs very quickly and accurately

takes 2.2 gb virtual memory

I do keep my data on the mac in shared folders

I do clone my VM regularily
especially before an upgrade

Hugh W

[raynmanfl]

gparted won't launch... i get an error that it can't start the gui. ARGH!

[Happyworker]

Hi there,

I'm a little confused on why you would have to use diskpart, if all you want to do is resize your VM.
I just used the image tool for my resize and restarted my VM -- this is all I have done, and the VM works fine.

I'm using build 3150 (February 1, 2007) and Windows XP.

Thanks,
Happyworker

[lloydi]

I've got to the stage where it's booting from the copied HD image, and Parallels seems to find the second HD I added, but despite parallels report HD2 being connected it's not showing in Windows explorer/My Computer, nor is it listed in DiskPart.

Any ideas?

[bdcnil2]

I successfully resized my Windows 2003 installation today using the following process.


Copy the HDD drive image file and rename
Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file
Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk
Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART
View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition
Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.
Enter the command extend
Enter the command exit
Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile.


I don't know if DISKPART can be used on Windows XP, etc. but I know that you can download it from Microsoft. Google diskpart windows download.

As mentioned, this worked for me though I cannot guarantee that this will work in all situations.
This worked as written by Jeliker. I use Build 3188, newest one. I have an XPSP2 VM I expanded from 8g to 10g using Image Tools. I store documents on Parallels shared folders, including one on the firewire drive with a 60g Fat32 partition. So I do need much space, just for apps and memory use.
After copying my .HDD VM file to my Firewire drive, I change my configuration to boot from the copied .hdd on my firewire drive (on Mac partition). I added the original .hdd as a 2nd hard drive. I booted the VM. It booted up fine and quickly as the original on the MacBook hard drive. I ran dskpart, just as Jeliker said, followed the steps, all preformed as expected and then shutdown the VM and change the configuration back to the MacBook original .hdd file and removed the firewire .hdd from the configuaton. Booted the VM and now it shows my VM local disk C: as 9.75 g, up from 7.7g.

Thanks for this great and simple tip.

[lloydl]

Another approach -

I am using Vista Business. My initial partition was 15GB. Later I decided I wanted it to be 30GB. I ran ImageTool which successfully expanded the partition to 30GB from its perspective, but not from Vista's perspective.

Steps I followed to solve this problem:

- Backed up my documents
- Ran Parallels ImageTool and increased the size of the partition to 30GB
- Ran Parallels ImageTool again and changed the partition from Expanding to Plain. (I'm not really sure if this step is necessary but I didn't mind committing the full 30GB permanently and it seemed like it would make things simpler and more likely that Vista would see the entire partition - which it didn't.)
- Went to the Administrative Tools control panel, then to Computer Management within Administrative Tools.
- Clicked Disk Management.
- Right clicked the original partition and selected Extend. Within a few seconds, both the original partition and the new partition created by Parallels ImageTool were merged into one 30GB partition.

I haven't spent any time using it yet, but Vista reports that the size of the Vista volume is now 30GB, so I'm hopeful that this has solved the problem.

[parallelsfan]

filch:

I think you may have slightly misunderstood the expanding drive's purpose.
The 'expanding' drive is designed to save disk space in the host system, not provide you with an infinitely expanding drive for your guest system.

Let's say you have created an expanding drive at the default size of 8GB. When you install windows, let's say it will use up about 1.5GB. With the expanding drive, the actual footprint of the .hdd file in Finder will be that same 1.5GB. As you add files and install programs, the drive file will expand to contain them, up to 8GB.

In contrast, if you have a 'fixed' drive at 8GB, Finder will read your .hdd file as 8GB, even if it's totally empty.

If you need your expanding drive to be larger than 8GB, you need to run ImageTool and increase the capacity of the image file, and then run the Gparted tool as mentioned in other posts in this thread, to actually expand the windows partition into the newly created empty space. When you restart windows it will detect the new space.

If your drive is totally full you still shouldn't have any problem running parallels' ImageTool on it to make it bigger; conversion isn't necessary.

I know, this seems a dumb question... I've read through this excellent discussion. I'm fairly new to parallels (not Linux or Unix) great VM tool, I love Parallels... I'm running Win98SE as my Guest OS in Parallels on SuSE Linux 10.2. I could do all this requires to expand my disk allocation, but truthfully I'm getting a little confused. I think I don't need to do anything, my install is absolutely perfect, and I don't want to mess it up.

My Hard Disk 1 in Parallels Config. Editor lists my Image File Virtual Disk Size as 8000 MB. Under Advanced, my Disk Format lists "Expanding." The actual size of my disk image file is 1543 MB.

What started me off looking in this posting is that in C: on my Win98SE Guest OS Properties shows I only have 1.99GB Capacity, 1.55GB Used, with only 457MB Free..

I guess what is really confusing me is the 'expanding drive' terminology.

I think, if I now understand it correctly, the upper limit shown in Win98 for my C: Disk will increase beyond 1.99GB capacity up to almost the 8GB VM available in my host. I guess if I already saw 8GB as my capacity for Win98SE drive C; rather than 1.99GB Capacity, I would have no question. So, when I look in my Linux partition I show a file size for win98.hdd of 1.5GB, Parallels Virtual Disk. So, it appears that can expand to 8GB VM.

Way back when I first installed Parallels, I can't recall for the life of me if I enabled "large disk support" during the initial part of the Win98SE install as the Guest OS, maybe it makes no difference with a VM? What's making me a bit anxious is I was able to install all of the MS updates off their server for Win98SE up to when they EOL'ed Win98, but I bet that server won't stay up much longer, so I want to be sure all is perfect now.

My question is, I'm OK as is? I don't need to do anything? I will never approach needing more than 8GB on drive C.

I appreciate your time. It's really clear to me you guys are way beyond me on VM. I recall from years ago being told the only dumb questions are only the ones that never get asked! I guess that's still true.

Thanks for your help,

Duane :confused:
UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just confirmed the answers to all of my questions myself this morning. I CAN'T BEGIN TO THANK ALL OF YOU ENOUGH FOR THIS GREAT DISCUSSION AND INFORMATION IN THIS POSTING. Sorry I did my original question, but yesterday I was totally confused with the concept of an 'expanding drive,' and my initial thoughts relative to my other questions I previously had.

I also checked in Win98SE and found I had in fact created a FAT16 rather than a FAT32 partition when initially installed, so, I went through the conversion process to FAT32 within Win98SE on my VM Disk C:. It worked perfectly. I also checked and my VM partition size in Linux and C: within Win98SE had scaled accordingly. So, I now basically understand the 'expanding drive' terminology and what it all means.

I know this is a Mac group, but it was the only place I could find anyone talking about this, and for this nature of confusion I previously had, it seemed Mac solutions were applicable to Linux.

Thanks again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Duane:)

[decoherence]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

Windows should run chkdsk automatically.

thanks! in good faith (in other words, without rtfm) i grew my partition to 80GB and made it fixed or "plain" then wondered why I still had no space on my guest C drive. read this thread after the fact. didn't want to duplicate an 80GB image or wait to shrink it back down. the 50MB gparted CD is much preferred.

no i didn't copy the image either. yes, I do run backups ;)

anyway, thanks

sean

[WhatUv]

:)
thanks !!

you're better than the paid support, that I paid for, and never got, as their phone system hangs up on me over and over again.

Thank god for users like you, out there, posting the anwers for us all to share! yay!

[veggiedude]

I was never able to extend the hard drive all these months. Instead, I created a new partition with the additional space, and then told Windows to put the VM swap file onto my drive E.

I believe I have at least gotten rid of the terrible 'not enough Virtual Memory' messages I have been plagued with.

[JollyRoger]

This seems like a ripe issue for a parallels tool based fix...

[Eru Ithildur]

Ditto that. It would be nice if it could happen automatically for you... I don't like multi-step processes when I have a user calling me up on the phone...

[TucsonTom]

When I tried this on XP I got an error when I typed extend. The error was: DiskPart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending.

[Eru Ithildur]

When I tried this on XP I got an error when I typed extend. The error was: DiskPart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending.
What file format does it show as?

[solsurfer]

I'm sorry but I'm confused. I thought the whole pooint of the Image Tool was to allow you to expand the size of the virtual hard drive. I used the tool to move mine from 8gb to 20, but it still shows as 8 when I boot. Do I now need to follow these instructions to get windows to recognize the new size? If so, what did Image Tool do?

Thanks!

[TucsonTom]

My thoughts exactly. This workaround is complicated and dangerous and it shouldn't be necessary. When I read the Parallels documentation it certainly makes it sound like the danged partition will automatically resize itself as Windows needs it. If I knew it didn't I could've created a larger partition in the first place and avoided all of this hassle.

While I'm venting, what's the deal with Parallels phone support? They never answer the phone nor do they return calls. I even purchased a tech support call. For the record, don't waste your money. You don't get through to anyone anyway.

[TucsonTom]

I used this technique with Windows XP and it worked fine.

[Eru Ithildur]

I guess the workaround could be dangerous... But it is fairly straightforward. The instructions are detailed enough in order to be copy and paste.

[colday]

I just did both my desktop & my laptop with the gparted tip posted by decoherence. It works absolutely great!

Steps that I did:

1. Download gparted cd iso in the tip posted by decoherence.
2. Start Parallels Tools, create a larger drive.
3. Start Parallels, create a new image, selecting Linux & pointing it to the iso file.
4. Don't run it yet!
5. Add your WinXP drive to the gparted setup.
6. Now run the gparted image.
7. Select your WinXP drive in the drop down box.
8. Expand it to take up all the space.
9. Apply the settings.
10. Shut down the gparted image.
11. Run your WinXP image - it should automatically run chkdsk.
12. After booting to WinXP it should find a new device & then ask you to reboot.
13. After rebooting you should find your drive the size you were expecting.

Notes:

Backup your WinXP folder first!

The Parallels tools simply adds unpartitioned space after your WinXP partition. If you want you can skip all of this & just run disk management from within XP & create another partition in that space. Then move whatever you want to that partition.

Steve

[vassego]

Just adding my thanks. I originally tried gparted, because I have some experience with qtparted and I thought that might be easier, but in the end diskpart was just as easy. Thanks.

[justflybob]

Man, oh man. The techno-geek folks that hang out here are simply the best!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

:D

[Eru Ithildur]

Glad everything is working for you guys!

Cheers to jeliker for the great tutorial!

[Sigge Stark]

Of course you should be able to expand the partiton with easy to use disk tools that come with Parallels Desktop. These kind of geeky instructions can not be recommended for any "ordinairy Mac user" that has a job to take care of and expects his computer to work without getting warnings about the disk is getting ful.

[Pumba]

Thx alot.. saved me alot of time..

[Dave Ruske]

Trying the gparted technique, I found that version 3.4.6 (current as of May 4, 2007) produced a kernel panic inside the VM seconds after booting. I took a look at what was current when this tip was first posted, and downloaded the LiveCD for version 3.1.1 of gparted. That worked just fine.

Just another bread crumb for those following the trail... :)

Thanks to all the participants here, particularly the people who posted the initial solutions.

Dave

[dizzydeane]

Great instructions & they work.

PS: The version of gparted-livecd.iso seems critical. For example 0.3.1-1 works while 0.3.4-6 does not. At least for me.

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

You do have to resize the parallels disk image first. Also "Boot your VM" took me several tries to figure out: 1. Edit the settings of your virtual machine to add another CD drive. 2. Point this CD drive to the live cd iso. 3. Change the settings on your new CD drive so that it is the primary drive (0,1) and disable the actual CD drive. 4. Change the boot settings for the vm so that it boots from CD first. 5. Restart your vm.
The bootup has a step that takes several minutes to complete with no messages to the user, I thought it had hung the first time and restarted. Just wait it out, gparted will eventually appear.
Gparted ended by giving me an error that made me think I'd trashed the disk image, but when I restarted, everything worked and I had my 60GB drive (well fifty-something).
Finally, don't forget to reset your CD drive and boot settings.

[Parkerhead]

After banging my head against a wall trying to resolve this issue, I was finally able to expand the size of my hard drive, thanks to the help provided in this thread. Thanks to everyone that has contributed...especially to jeliker for starting it off!

[Jthompson]

problem. My volume list only shows one hard as a system. The extend function is not working.

the error message is "diskpart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending

Any idea.

[rdean]

Great thread. With the GPart and the initial instructions I was able to do this quite easily.

Though it did take some research to figure out how to create an ISO disk on the Mac, so I learned somethng new along the way.

[Ellefsen]

please forgive me.
i have tried to understand this entire thread.. im a new parallels and Mac user..and i find it all very hard to understand!
my first problem is a simple one (i think ...)
when i try to use the Image Tool
i say that the image Tool should operate with the hard Disk.
then i choose to increase the size of the virtual hardisk
then i have to select a source hard disk image and specity its new size.
however the hdd file does not excist.
any idea on what to do?
i think im somewhat confused because my english isnt that good, so its hard to figure out what exaclty you mean.
can anyone help me
terribly sorry for being troublesome. :-(

[mthibode]

Look for a file ending with ".hdd".
This is on your hard drive if you're running Parallels now. (probably under /Users/Library/Parallels/)
"YourHardDrive.hdd" is the file that you are asking image tool to increase.

Another successful gparted customer.
You don't need to make a copy of the disk image-- especially if you already have a backup on another disk (this is an attractive option if you don't have the room on your hard drive to duplicate your HDD).

GPARTED Option:
Resize your parallels image with Parallel's Image Tool located in \Applications\Parallels\
(Takes a few minutes depending on how large you want to go)
Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Get one of the known-good distributions, i.e., version 0.2.5 or 0.3.1
(32 MB download takes 1-5 minutes of broadband)
Put it anywhere on your mac's hard disk
(Don't be tempted to get the Live-USB because you'll boot from the .iso image and not from a regular cd)
-----------
Open Parallels and go to your virtual machine settings under the edit menu
Select your CD/DVD drive and uncheck the enable switch, making room for the ISO image startup
Add a different virtual CD drive, enable it and set IDE connection to 0:1 (affirm the prompt that Parallels gives you)
Select the .iso image that you downloaded earlier as the mount point for your new CD drive
Change your boot settings to indicate booting from the cd drive instead of the hard disk
------------
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gparted starts (gparted will start automatically and is a program to expand drives etc.)
(Takes about 1 minute)
Select partition to resize (then you can drag the bar to the right to extend the available space)
Resize
Hit apply
Quit the program
Disconnect iso and return to original boot settings under the edit: virtual machine menu item
Reboot
Check Disk will probably run automatically

If I was a little more saavy, I'd write an applescript that does this.

[PSL]

Thanks for the life saving tip! It seems you cannot extend a partition that you boot from (there was a very cryptic reference to this in the DISKPART instructions). So booting from the clone lets you expand the original which becomes non-boot partition. Really surprised Parallels doesn't clearly describe this in the set up instructions - they imply that disk space is easily expanded (it is but is innaccessable!). Parallels tech support was clueless - recommended I buy 3rd party sofware. What a hassle! (isn't this why we use Macs in the first place????)

Thanks again

PSL

[albertoarturo]

This query is in regard to your posting of 5-3-06 "How I resized a Windows partition" and the follow up response 0f 5-11-06 to pmbooks1's posting :

I used your procedure and met with almost complete success. There is one nagging issue that remains. Let me walk through the steps that I followed. It's tedious, but my query is about confusion between disk 1 and disk 2 at the end of the process so step by step seems the safe way to go:

1. I copied the HDD drive (named winxp.1.hdd) and named the copy winxp.1copy.hdd
2. I used Image Tools to resize winxp.1.hdd from 20gb to 30gb.
3. I changed the VM profile so that it booted off of winxp.1.copy.hdd and added winxp.1.hdd as disk 2.
The VM profile now shows disk 1 as 20gb (winxp.1copy.hdd) and disk 2 as 30gb (winxp.1copy.hdd).

4-8. I booted up from disk 1 and ran diskpart. I selected volume 2 (E drive, 30gb), extended successfully and exited.
I shut down winxp and returned to the property page. It still showed hard drive 1 as 20 gb and hard drive 2 as 30gb.

Here's where I get confused: In your second response to pmbooksq, you instruct: "...display Configuration Editor again. Highlight Hard Disk 2, then click to remove."

But hard disk 2 is the 30gb expanded disk. If I remove it, I'm back where I started with one hard disk of 20gb capacity. Don't you mean to remove the copy (winxp.1copy.hdd) which is a replica of the 20gb HD that we started with?

I have a second, related question: If I boot up from either hard disk 1 (20gb) or hard disk 2 (30gb) and look at drive C in My Computer, it shows a capacity of 8gb (more precisely, 7.79gb). Shouldn't C reflect the 20 or 30 gb capacities shown on the property page?

I suspect that it may have something to do with the fact that hard disks are initially installed in expanding format, but I tried to change that using Image Tools and although the utility ran to completion and took about 10 minutes to finish, it didn't seem to change anything in the My Computer value of C's capacity.

This is of more than passing interest since My Computer/C shows that I have used all but 279 mb of storage. What happens when there is no more space? Will it expand?
Hope you can clarify.

[kothar64]

Windows have always been creating problems with NTFS system,
I think Linux could be a solution to this,If you want to continue with windows, you may change the system setting and proceed.

[o_sleep]

Image tools have been removed from Parallels 3.0, what is an alternative application to use? I am trying the transporter out which is in the middle of "Applying Hardware Changes" I am not sure if this is going to give me an option later to increase the size.

[Ankou]

Image tools have been removed from Parallels 3.0, what is an alternative application to use? I am trying the transporter out which is in the middle of "Applying Hardware Changes" I am not sure if this is going to give me an option later to increase the size.

Hello o_sleep
You can still make more free hard drive space available for the Guest OS by adding one more HDD to the VM configuration (Edit - Virtual Machine - Add - Hard Disk), then just partition and format you new HDD in the VM. For example, in Windows XP it can be done from Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Storage - Disk Management.

[kuebler]

Hello o_sleep
You can still make more free hard drive space available for the Guest OS by adding one more HDD to the VM configuration (Edit - Virtual Machine - Add - Hard Disk), then just partition and format you new HDD in the VM. For example, in Windows XP it can be done from Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Storage - Disk Management.
Is there really no more any way to enlarge the virtual disk? I definitively don't want to have 2 logical HDD, not at all!

I was not aware that 3.0 does no longer support Image Tool, so I was a bit careless when assigning the initial size of the hard disk. Now I'm trapped!

Is there any other indirect way to make my disk bigger, e.g. by some intelligent way of cloning?

[Wally_Mac]

I just updated my copy of Parallels Desktop for Mac to Version 3. I now need to increase my VM hard drive size, and sure enough... the Image Tools utility is no where to be found (after the upgrade).
Would very much appreciate suggestions on how to increase my current hard drive size without (1) losing my current Windows setup, or (2) ending up with two virtual drives for the Windows partition.

[kuebler]

Would very much appreciate suggestions on how to increase my current hard drive size without (1) losing my current Windows setup, or (2) ending up with two virtual drives for the Windows partition.
I personally had still the original Bootcamp partition, and resorted to creating a new VM image via VMWare Converter, re-installed Parallels 3188, imported the VM again via 3188 transporter, increased via Image Tool, and upgraded again to 4128.

You probably cannot go this way, because your VM is already converted. But you could do the following:
a) create a 2nd larger (virtual) HDD within your 4128 VM,
b) format this from Windows within Parallels,
c) run under Windows/Parallels a drive copy utility (there are several, such as Acronis) copying the 1st (virtual) HDD to the 2nd.
d) stop the VM,
e) exchange both (virtual) HDDs within the definition of the VM
f) boot again, and this time you will have your original system with a larger disk, and can delete the initial 1st HDD

Good luck ;)

[paranoid87]

wow..thanks a ton! this thread really saved me a lotta time!

thanks all!


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[jjhenjj]

Someone posted a similar problem a while ago.

Step #5) DISKPART --> list volume
did not list my new volume. In fact, it would only list two volumes. I could only see the the boot hard drive (Volume 0) and my cd/dvd drive (Volume 1). This prevented me from expanding the unseen drive.

Odd Work Around:
Add to step 3:
a) change the IDE number of the CD/DVD drive to 1:1.
b) change the IDE number of the hard drive to expand to 0:1
c) leave the IDE number of the boot hard drive at 0:0

For some reason after that, when I typed "list volume", I could see the two hard drives but not my CD/DVD drive.

After this it all worked fine.

By the way:
I could not figure out how to reconfigure parallels. Windows would always boot up and I could not edit the virtual machine while it was running. I did not know about holding the command key down while opening parallels. That tidbit must be in the manual somewhere, but not anywhere that I could find.

[atodedeus]

I personally had still the original Bootcamp partition, and resorted to creating a new VM image via VMWare Converter, re-installed Parallels 3188, imported the VM again via 3188 transporter, increased via Image Tool, and upgraded again to 4128.

You probably cannot go this way, because your VM is already converted. But you could do the following:
a) create a 2nd larger (virtual) HDD within your 4128 VM,
b) format this from Windows within Parallels,
c) run under Windows/Parallels a drive copy utility (there are several, such as Acronis) copying the 1st (virtual) HDD to the 2nd.
d) stop the VM,
e) exchange both (virtual) HDDs within the definition of the VM
f) boot again, and this time you will have your original system with a larger disk, and can delete the initial 1st HDD

Good luck ;)

This is a good idea, which I attempted -- but I'm not having much luck booting into the new, larger partition. I've made it an "active" partition, and the boot sequence begins, but parallels hangs when it gets to the blue-background "welcome to windows" screen. I used gparted to make a copy of the original disk -- any ideas?

[kuebler]

This is a good idea, which I attempted -- but I'm not having much luck booting into the new, larger partition. I've made it an "active" partition, and the boot sequence begins, but parallels hangs when it gets to the blue-background "welcome to windows" screen. I used gparted to make a copy of the original disk -- any ideas?
I guess the problem must be due to the nature of the copied partition. Some people had success, using different copying utilities, e.g. Acronis. But unfortunately I can't help in detail, because as posted I did it in a different way. So keeping trying probably is your only option.

[Rappy28]

please forgive me.
i have tried to understand this entire thread.. im a new parallels and Mac user..and i find it all very hard to understand!
my first problem is a simple one (i think ...)
when i try to use the Image Tool
i say that the image Tool should operate with the hard Disk.
then i choose to increase the size of the virtual hardisk
then i have to select a source hard disk image and specity its new size.
however the hdd file does not excist.
any idea on what to do?
i think im somewhat confused because my english isnt that good, so its hard to figure out what exaclty you mean.
can anyone help me
terribly sorry for being troublesome. :-(

I have exactly the same problem. I know I really suck at computers, but I CANNOT find the ".hdd file". What is it supposed to be ? I did not find anything in my Library/Parallels folder. All I can see is the virtual hard drive "Untitled" on my desktop, which I want to expand, and it certainly isn't a .hdd, and Parallels Image Tool refuses to do anything with it.
I did a spotlight search for ".hdd" and it did not find anything relevant.

What is the .hdd and where can I find it ? :confused:

A fast answer (before Saturday if possible) would be greatly appreciated.

[Purplish]

The .hdd file is the virtual hard disk file. It contains your virtual machine, your operating system, say XP, and any data files you have stored there. The .pvs file contains the settings for your virtual machine.

It should have the name of your operating system, unless you changed it. For example, mine is called WinXP.hdd.

It can be found in a couple of different places - because the Parallels installation program was changed at some point last year to point to a different spot.

On your Mac hard drive, look in <your name>/Library/Parallels/<VM Name>/

If you don't find it there, look in <your name>/documents/parallels/<vm name/

If you don't find it there, check your shared folders in the same 2 places.

Good luck.

[Rappy28]

Hmmmm, I realize my mistake : I actually have had two Library folders since the beginning. One in my Users folder, and the other just hanging around in the main hard drive directory. I don't know how this happened... Looks like I looked into the wrong one anyway. God I feel stupid. Thank you for the help. :p

[parallels support]

I have exactly the same problem. I know I really suck at computers, but I CANNOT find the ".hdd file". What is it supposed to be ? I did not find anything in my Library/Parallels folder. All I can see is the virtual hard drive "Untitled" on my desktop, which I want to expand, and it certainly isn't a .hdd, and Parallels Image Tool refuses to do anything with it.
I did a spotlight search for ".hdd" and it did not find anything relevant.

What is the .hdd and where can I find it ? :confused:

A fast answer (before Saturday if possible) would be greatly appreciated.

Hey, I haven't read through this entire post, so I hope my comments are relevant and complete. I just saw your question and thought I'd give you a quick answer. The .HDD file you ask about is the Parallels/Windows virtual hard drive. If you have loaded Windows as a guest operating system in a virtual machine (VM), then you will have a .PVS file and an .HDD file in the same folder on the Mac HD.

If you loaded Parallels as a new install from a CD, then these two files will be in a folder probably called WinXP or something similar and by default are placed in the Parallels folder in the User library. (note USER library, not SYSTEM library). If you downloaded the DMG package from the Parallels website, then these files will be located in the Parallels folder in the User's documents folder. Have fun!

[amber]

Thanks everyone for your posts. I used jeliker's and others information to sucessfully increase my windows partition from 8 to 20GB. Without the forum I would have given up on the product long ago. Thanks for sharing your information. It's unfortunate that such a great product has such poor support and documentation.

amber

[neilhand]

I just has success resizing a friend drive image using the "parted magic" live cd rather than the "gparted" live CD.

The versions seem to be the same, but the live CD portion is different. It booted on Parallels without a problem and from there everything went smoothly (no kernel panics, and a successful resize).

Just wanted to let others know

[suzjqz@mac.com]

HELP! I JUST installed Parallels and it somehow picked up a VM I had already put on there from last year I guess. It upgraded it to the 3.0 and I loaded all my stuff on... and... it is way too small. I have read through all this and am thoroughly confused. Where do I get the Parted Magic as in the last comment? Does someone have a step by step using the parted magic so I can get this done in an hour or so? I JUST got Windows set up the way it needs to be and dread the thought of going through all the activation etc again so need to make this work. Thank you Thank you for anyone with the heart and tech knowledge to help at this point.

[shonza]

just thought I would add my thanks to the list as it has been a long time since the original post and a few releases of parallels etc. but I can confirm the original day one post by jeliker still works like a dream! many many thanks.
s

PS - here's what parallels tech support wrote me yesterday in response to my query about this:

From: Parallels Customer Service via RT [mailto:desktop@parallels.com]
Subject: [Parallels #184483] [Web Support]: Resizing Virtual Machine Hard Disk, Sean

Sean, You are right.
Best way to increase space on virtual HDD is to use 3rd party software, like Partition Magic.
P.S. I will forward information about expand feature to the relevant boss.

> I have read the kb article:
> http://kb.parallels.com/entry/25/133/
>
> however this appears to explain how to create a new named drive, not
> to expand the c: drive - am I missing something? is there other
> software that would enable this?

[betheeem]

This may be a strange question...but is it possible to decrease the size of my vm. I made a vm from my old computer and it created a copy of my entire 100GB hard drive. Do not need that much space allocated to Parallels. I know image tool will increase the drive...have done it with no problem...has any one ever decreased a drive.

[rkowal]

Thanks, Jeliker

this is Apple's fault: I got used to not reading manuals...

Robert


Moved from How Parallels "Desktop for Mac"

I successfully resized my Windows 2003 installation today using the following process.


Copy the HDD drive image file and rename
Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file
Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk
Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART
View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition
Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.
Enter the command extend
Enter the command exit
Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile.


I don't know if DISKPART can be used on Windows XP, etc. but I know that you can download it from Microsoft. Google diskpart windows download.

As mentioned, this worked for me though I cannot guarantee that this will work in all situations.

[engrProf]

Parallels, please document this feature in the Image tools manual!

[forgie]

You don't need to make a copy of the disk image.

Download the live cd from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Boot your VM from the live cd iso
Select default values until gpartd starts
Select partition to resize
Resize and apply
Disconnect iso
Reboot

Windows should run chkdsk automatically.
That worked for me. I used Parallels Image Tool to increase my .hdd image size, then I followed your directions. As someone earlier pointed out, only certain versions of gparted work - 0.3.1 worked great for me.

Thanks for the tips guys!

[dkdurcan]

I can see the existing windows partitions, but I'm unable to resize any of them. No options to make the partitions bigger than they are currently.

/dev/hdc1 - 7.80 GiB
/dev/hdc5 - 16.61 GiB

unallocated - 7.79 GiB

I can see the additional disk space I allocated via Parallel tools, but that's about it.

any ideas???

[Stouw]

Hello,

I'm verry new at the Mac.

I've Windows XP working on my Macbook with parallels. But I need more disksize at Windows for a program. I've now 1Gb for Windows XP and I want it upgraded to 10 Gb.

I've read all the posts but it's still difficult to understand.

Can someone help me?

Thanks.

[pgwest@inboc.com]

I tried these directions today and found that Diskpart only recognises the original size of the disks, 20Gb in this case. I increased the original to 32Gb, but Windows does not recognise it, including Diskpart. Any suggestions? This is on Windows XP Professional.

Paul

[dkdurcan]

Here's how to resize the C: drive

http://durcan.net/blog/2007/08/22/mac-tip-how-to-increase-the-size-of-the-c-drive-for-xp-running-within-osx-parallels/

its way to long to retype again.

[betheeem]

Is it possible to make your VM smaller?


This may be a strange question...but is it possible to decrease the size of my vm. I made a vm from my old computer and it created a copy of my entire 100GB hard drive. Do not need that much space allocated to Parallels. I know image tool will increase the drive...have done it with no problem...has any one ever decreased a drive.

[rlockhart]

Using the directions in the very first post of this thread I was easily able to extend an XP SP2 disk from 12 to 32 gb. I recently upgraded the HD on my BlackBook to a Hitachi 200gb 7200 rpm drive and this puppy now flies! That gave me the room I needed to expand my HD on Parallels.

For the record, I'm using build 5160 of Parallels, and I agree that this tool should be a part of the program. Parallels has come a long way, and is easier to work with than Fusion, or at least I think so. Based on the number of posts about this topic, I can't imagine that it won't eventually be a simple utility, like Transporter.

[klutzak]

I'm a longtime user of Parallels, and I've been able to resize my partition before using the duplicate image and DISKPART method.

As usual, after using the resize tool on the image, I booted from a duplicate image and ran DISKPART.

This time, the DISKPART application told me that it had extended the Drive, but HAD NOT extended the filesystem (?). It suggested I try EXTEND SYSTEM, which failed to work.

Sure enough, when rebooted with the image, it still shows up at the smaller size in the drive C properties.

I then downloaded GPARTED-LIVECD iso and tried it.

It does not show any unallocated free space (grey); however it DOES show the added space as UNUSED. So it basically verifies that the partition was increased, but the filesystem was NOT.

I'm hoping somebody else has experienced this and knows how to fix it; can anybody help me?

[karfel]

One way to shrink a drive is to (if necessary) convert it to expanding type, and then compress it. Then your 100 gig drive will only take the space actually in use.

Personally, I prefer to keep all my files on the mac side in a shared folder, which allows me to minimise the size of the virtual drive file. This makes backing up the virtual hard drive easier (almost optional) and not often needed, with Time Machine effortlessly backing up the actual day-to-day files. A side advantage of this is that copying files to and from USB drives on the mac side is MUCH faster than on the virtual drive side.

[neshuis]

Thanks for all of your input. It takes a while to bring up GParted but it eventually works like a charm. After trying a number of different versions of GParted the only one that worked properly was the 3.1.1. After a 'chkdsk' the drive came up properly.

[owenkc]

All,

I booted the VM to the mounted gparted 0.2.5 live CD ISO image

myktee

Can someone give me some instructions as to how to do this, please? I downloaded gparted, told Parallels to attach the downloaded file as the CD image and tried to boot the VM. It couldn't find an OS!

Feeling totally stuffed at the moment.

Dave

[chfn]

I would like to DOWNSIZE my VM disk (macair is too short in memory). Can I apply the same procedure ?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help

[comer]

I google partition manager find some freeware bellow:

paragon http://www.paragon-software.com
I have not used,no comment!

easeus partition manager
I download from brother soft
http://www.brothersoft.com/easeus-partition-manager-51814.html

It worked OK, but failed when i tried to merge partition. so i have to allocated the free space to another partition. Partition magic may merge two partitions which will cost you $69.95

I google partition manager find some freeware bellow:

paragon http://www.paragon-software.com
I have not used,no comment!

easeus partition manager
I download from brother soft .It worked OK, but failed when i tried to merge partition. so i have to allocated the free space to another partition. Partition magic may merge two partitions which will cost you $69.95

there are some tips for your to resize your partition:http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/help/resizing-and-moving-partition.htm

[John@Parallels]

You can try this http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2007/01/9404/

Do not forget to backup VM first

[chfn]

Thanks a lot for your help. I will try it.

[rancelan]

If your system is not server, then use EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition is enough; if it is server, then you have to use EASEUS Partition Manager Server Edition.

[cloudy123]

windows has a function of resizing the partition but it will damage your files in your compytor.you can have a look at this website:http://www.partition-tool.com/

[candy1111]

Well, to resize a Windows partition, you can have a try EASEUS Partition Manager. The newest vesion of this product support Windows 2003 Serve(32 and 64 bit), XP (32 and 64 bit).It is very simple to manage partitions in the following way: Launch the software. Select the partition on the fly. Then click Partitions > Resize / Move. On the disk diagram, the current size of all the partitions on the Server is displayed. The diagram also depicts free space on the disk. The minimum and maximum sizes that you can do with the partition depend on the free space within and surrounding it on the disk. Drag the handle of the partition to any size you want. The last step, save your operations and reboot your Windows Server system; you would have an enlarged partition.

More important, EAEUS Partition Manager (http://www.partition-tool.com)Home Edition is free for home users!

[cloudy123]

You may choose some famous software to help you, such as Partition magic, EASEUS Partition Manager. However, you should tell whether your computer is server or not because Partition magic does not support server and it can not be updated for a period of time. You can download a demo to have a try：http://www.easeus.com/download.htm.Please share your feeling with me after you usage:)Hope it can help you:)

[cloudy123]

Hi, everybody!
I am not specilaize in computer, so it is difficult for me to use fdisk to partition my computer. Usually, I use a kind of software named EASEUS Partition Manager to resize partitions which is easy for me and never damaged my files or data.

[candy1111]

Useful!! I often use EASEUS Partition Manager to resize my partitions.

[cloudy123]

Is it server or non-server? I have read an article on softpedia and you can have a look for I think it will help you.http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/EASEUS-Partition-Manager-Server--Review-92249.shtml

[Kevin Wessell]

I appreciate it but have some questions for items 1, 2, 3 and 9.

1. Copy the HDD drive image file and rename - What is an HDD drive image and where is it?

2. Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file - What is "Image Tools" and where do you find it?

3. Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk - How do you do this?


4. Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART

5. View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition

6. Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.

7. Enter the command extend

8. Enter the command exit

9. Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile. - How do you do this?

Thank you in advance for explaining the above details for questions 1, 2, 3, and 9.

[BrendanG]

Hi All,

I just resized my windows partition using the partition tool, started up parallels and automatically got the extra space. Is this expected?

Thanks

[Lawrencew]

I appreciate it but have some questions for items 1, 2, 3 and 9.

1. Copy the HDD drive image file and rename - What is an HDD drive image and where is it?

2. Use Image Tools to resize the original HDD file - What is "Image Tools" and where do you find it?

3. Change your VM profile to boot off of the copied HDD image and add the original, resized image as a second hard disk - How do you do this?


4. Once booted, open CMD prompt and run DISKPART

5. View volumes in DISKPART with the command list volume. Note which volume is your original, resized partition

6. Select that partition using the DISKPART command select volume # where # is the partition number.

7. Enter the command extend

8. Enter the command exit

9. Exit Windows and change the VM profile to once again boot from the original, resized image file. You can disconnect (and delete?) the copied image file from the VM profile. - How do you do this?

It seems a little complicated and some Partition Tool can help you ease the job with several clicks. No need to reboot the Windows and without reinstall the OS and all the data be protected. It also support Dynamic disk and RAID. For more details, you may refer to How to Resize Windows Patition without Data Loss? (http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/help/resizing-and-moving-partition.htm)

[Clabbe]

It seems many of these tips and tricks in this thread are quite old... and when not being a "hacker" in any way I wonder if there's some easier way to resize the Windows partition in my Mac ?

I'm using Parallels Desktop for Mac - build 4.0.3848
I'm running - Mac OS X
And in the VM via Parallels I'm running Windows Vista

I've been running the Parallels for about half a year and now I've got some new Windows software I need to add and I would like to upgrade the Windows partition (C:). It's currently 31,9 GB with some free 10 GB...
The Z: (Home) partition is 148 GB (83 GB free)

As I haven't got very much Mac programs or files - I would like to use some of the Mac assigned space to add to the C: and Z:
I seem to recall when installing the Parallels software that it could be possible to change the partition sizes by running the installation disc again. Or am I wrong? Or should some of the softwares mentioned earlier in this thread be used in order to acheive this? I rather use something that Parallels say is correct and working smoothly...
I really don't want to "play around" too much as I've got a perfectly running installation at the time being.
Anyone who can help a newbe in this ? Thank you !!!

// Clabbe