How do I make my Windows (parallel) virtual Harddrive bigger?

[tkjazzer]

EDIT:I'm in the process of searching for this on the forums since I'm sure it has been covered before. If you have a link, that would be of great help.


I only have 2 gigs left on my windows Virtual Parallels C drive.

(running from my OSX Macbook Pro (intel core 2 duo))

I enjoy WMP11 for watching these files that I'm going to keep them there for another week and need to download about 2-3 more gigs of video on the windows side.

How do I expand my virtual hard drive?

WILL IT IN ANY WAY CRASH OR BE A DANGER TO MY SYSTEM (windows or osx)?

Tom

[tkjazzer]

i tried reading the stickies but it is sort of greek to me. I will try to translate it more later. I don't think i've come across a good post yet. It sounds like I can get a 3rd party application to expand it for me and there was a feature incorporated into parallels that I have not discovered yet that should do it...

some people said they can't go past 8 gigs but I don't know if that was out-of-date or not.

anyway, I'll come back later and try again.

[tkjazzer]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[Purplish]

Well done!

[digimikek]

by duplicating do you mean 'cloning'?

i'm not familiar with being able to duplicate the VM via the 'finder' with the mac

i've followed the listed procedure the best i could but with no success

thanks

[joem]

Duplicate in the finder means right click the file, and choose duplicate from the resulting context menu. Also note that this is easier if you use the image tool to extend the duplicate rather than the original so you don't have to swap devices in the first phase.

The image tool makes the disk bigger, but does not make the partition bigger, and this is the reason you need to go through the partition expansion.

Another possible solution to your problem is to simply create another virtual disk of any size you like, and attach it to your VM as a second disk. You can then format it in Windows using the logical disk manager, and use it as drive D (usually) and download your video files to it. If you move your current data to D, you should have plenty of space on both drives.

[kevinw]

Another question on expanding a current volume -

I've used the Quick Start Guide on page 24 to try to expand my HDD using the Parallels Image Tool.

The problem is that I have specified the current disk, which is at 8000 mb (= +/- 8GB) to expand to 12000 mb (+/- 12 GB) but when it's done the disk size still shows 8GB in Finder??

When I edit using Parallels Tools it shows 12 GB, but when I procede with instructions to to open Windows, use the command prompt and "Disk Part" it shows both the old and the new volumes at the same size, 8GB????

Am I doing something wrong?

[constant]

.
tkjazzer,

Could you please edit the subject to make it a statement instead of a question.
.

[digimikek]

great advice and well defined

many thanks

[jnbballfan]

I agree that the documentation and instructions that go along with this product are lacking.... something as basic as this should be really spelled out as procedure ... especially since it is recomended that one use "expanding" as disk option. Your outline of action to take was extremly helpful.

[rlockhart]

Copying the drive and then following the instructions outlined above worked perfectly. It's a bit cumbersom, and it's a shame that Parallel's doesn't document it, but thanks for the help.

Best,
Ron Lockhart

[joymac]

I've been trying to get my bigger HD to be recornized by Windows using Gparted for over a day, to no avail.

I found this thread and followed the steps above and it worked beautifully.

Thank you for taking the time to write these!

[basoprofundo]

I have grown a beard in the time it took to do this, and it has gone grey!!!

The instructions are great if you have a ntfs format drive, if however you have a fat32 drive, you need to convert it. You can get instructions here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/980e36e5-e91a-7d45-836a-b13d67289a48.aspx

I'm quite glad I use a Mac :p