Unable to increase size of static VM

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by RHS, Mar 31, 2020.

  1. RHS

    RHS Hunter

    Messages:
    101
    Greetings,
    I know this has been posted before.
    I have read the few KB's out there.
    So far, nothing has worked.
    I am running the latest Parallels software on the latest Mac desktop OS.
    I have a static Windows 10 VM of 512GB and want to increase it to 750GB.
    I am running this on an EXTERNAL 1TB Thunderbolt drive.
    I first went through the Parallels desktop settings to make the VM static. That worked.
    I then increased the size from 512GB to 750GB. That worked.
    The total size of the VM file on disk is now 805GB.
    Windows Explorer does NOT recognize this new size of the C: drive.
    upload_2020-3-31_8-27-36.png
    I ran 'Diskpart' in CMD as administrator to extend the partition.
    This seems to have worked:
    DISKPART> list disk

    Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
    -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
    Disk 0 Online 750 GB 238 GB
    I downloaded and installed the trial version of Acronis Disk Director.
    I changed the size of the C: drive to 510GB and attempted to commit the action.
    Unfortunately, it seems Acronis will not allow me to commit since this is a trial version.
    I did notice one thing.
    Acronis shows approximately 238GB UNALLOCATED. Is this my missing disk space?
    How can I allocate that disk space to the C: drive?
    upload_2020-3-31_8-30-28.png
    Any assistance would be much appreciated.
     
  2. RHS

    RHS Hunter

    Messages:
    101
    Hello. Yes this is the KB I read. I read other KB's related to this. I am thinking the issue is this 450MB partition in between. It cannot extend the Local Volume (C:) because it is in between C: and the unallocated disk space I want to use. I have no idea what that 450MB partition is for. I wonder if this left over from being upgraded from Windows 7. Disk Management says it's a 'recovery partition'. Acronis does let me look at files in that partition. There are just a few; some as far back as 2015.
     
  3. RHS

    RHS Hunter

    Messages:
    101
    Do I now need to EXTEND the C: partition via DISKPART? I'm not sure I can since this 'recovery volume' is in the way.
     
  4. RHS

    RHS Hunter

    Messages:
    101
    I'm very new at this. Would I need to create a volume out of that unallocated space, THEN merge it with the local volume?
     
  5. RHS

    RHS Hunter

    Messages:
    101
    Hi. I'm thinking this local volume is a holdover from the Win7 days. I'm wondering if I could delete that 450MB volume so I can extend the local volume c:. Your thoughts?
     
  6. mmika

    mmika Pro

    Messages:
    488
    RHS, I think you can delete windows recovery partition. It's a small chances if you will use Windows recovery ever.
    Use snapshots as recovery points.
    If VM will be broken somehow in OS X (time machine collision, filesystem corruption etc) you won't have chances to boot from Windows recovery, just because of broken virtual disk structure. Windows Recovery is useful for recovering from broken Windows update, installation of malicious software etc. But it much more easier just to save a VM state via snapshot and revert later if necessary.
    The only question is why your VM takes so much space (800G). Check VM bundle contents. If there are a lot of *.dmp files, you can remove it. Also, check parallels.log file size.
    You can create a snapshot before removing Window recovery partition and in case of something will go wrong just undo changes by reverting to previous(i.e current) state.
     
  7. RHS

    RHS Hunter

    Messages:
    101
    SUCCESS!! I used the old DISKPART function in CMD to remove that old partition, then expanded the c: partition to take up all the unallocated space and it worked!! Thank you!!
     
  8. JoelH1

    JoelH1 Member

    Messages:
    27
    I have the same problem, and I find this linked article much to technically advanced for me.
     
  9. Do you have the latest Parallels Desktop version?
     
  10. JoelH1

    JoelH1 Member

    Messages:
    27
    Oh yes, I always get the update. But I found my own answer. There's a free utility called MiniTool Partition Wizard, which fixed things right up with an easy to understand GUI.
     

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