How to expand drive C in Mac OS X

T

thorby

Member
My WinXP VM ran out of space on its drive C, and after looking at many posts (lots of people have the same problem) and finding only partial answers I worked it out and here is the definitive procedure. Please feel free to advise and correct, but this really ought to be in the Parallels help.

This procedure applies only to Virtual Hard Disks (not to Boot Camp disk partitions), and requires temporary disk space equal to the sum of the existing drive plus the new expanded drive. The reason for this rigamarole is that Windows cannot alter the partition size of its boot disk. So we have to create a temporary copy of the boot disk, boot from it, and then we can modify the partition size of the expanded drive. Then we throw away the temporary hdd.

In the Finder, click on the existing drive image, probably "Winxp.hdd"
File > Duplicate (cmd-d)
MacOS makes a duplicate of your drive image, "Winxp copy.hdd"

Start the Parallels Image Tool
Select the old drive "Winxp.hdd"
Set the desired new size
Let the Image Tool do its thing (takes a while)

Start Parallels and edit the configuration of the VM
click on Hard Disk 1
click Remove (removes "Winxp.hdd" from the config)
click Add; select Hard Disk; click Next; click "Use an existing..."
Browse to find the copy drive, "Winxp copy.hdd"
(The copy drive image is now Hard Disk 1.)
click Add; select Hard Disk; click Next; click "Use an existing..."
browse to the expanded drive "Winxp.hdd"
(The expanded drive is now Hard Disk 2.)

Boot the VM. Wait for Windows to get completely up and stable.

Click Start; click Run; type: diskpart (return)

In the diskpart.exe window type: list volume (return)
You should see two disk volumes, C and E.
type: select volume 2 (return)
type: extend (return)

After a moment you see: DiskPart successfully extended the volume.
type: list volume (return)
and observe that volume E now has the expanded size.

Click the red STOP button in the upper right (no need for shutdown)
Edit> Virtual Machine
Click on Hard Disk 1, "Winxp copy.hdd"
Click Remove
Click on Hard Disk 2, "Winxp.hdd"
Click Remove
Click Add; select Hard Disk; click Next; click "Use an existing..."
Browse to the expanded "Winxp.hdd"
The expanded "Winxp.hdd" is now Hard Disk 1
Click OK

Boot the VM.

Windows will discover new hardware.
Windows will notify you of a System Settings Change and ask if you want to restart now?
Click Yes.
Windows reboots.

This time Windows will be normal and drive C has the expanded size!

You can now go to the Finder and delete "Winxp copy.hdd" and empty the trash.

P.S. at the end you might think, after Removing HD#1, "Winxp.hdd" is now HD#1, I'll just go ahead and boot. Nunh-unh! I tried that and Parallels then said, there's no bootable system on that disk. Aghhh! But if you follow the instructions, delete both drives and then add back the expanded one, all will be well.
 
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thorby said:
In the Finder, click on the existing drive image, probably "Winxp.hdd"
File > Duplicate (cmd-d)
MacOS makes a duplicate of your drive image, "Winxp copy.hdd"
Click to expand...

So I am having trouble figuring out what to do about finding the "drive image". I have 'Macintosh HD' and 'NO NAME' on my desktop but when I choose to duplicate the NO NAME drive it just creates a folder with all the files on NO NAME in it. I can't get to a folder above the folders for my hard drives something like the My Computer (I suspect I may have accidently removed it from the left margin of the finder.) any chance someone may know what I need to do here (or what I'm saying)?

As clarification I never see anything with the name *.hdd

*Edit: So I figured out how to get to the folder for the computer overall but it will not let me use the duplicate option from the file menu. The only place I can duplicate the drives from in my desktop, which leads to the creation of a folder, and not a drive image that I was able to load into Parallels configuration.
 
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It's called NO NAME when I'm not running parallels, when I turn on Parallels it's called [C] My Boot Camp. In both cases I cannot duplicate the drive when I have the drives open in the 'Vince's MBP'Finder window (creative naming, I know). However, I can try to duplicate either my Macintosh HD or the PC drive from their icons on the desktop, but again this just creates a folder with files in it not a disk image.
 
John - Thanks for the two quick replies. I fooled around with winclone last night, but I couldn't figure out how to create a bootable disk, in the fashion required from thorby's post. I'm fairly illiterate when it comes to this VM/partitioning stuff so I would appreciate any more in depth descriptions you can supply me with.

With winclone I created an image of the NO NAME drive (that's my Boot Camp partition) and it created a file named 'BootCamp clone.winclone'. This is again a file I cannot select as a boot disk in Parallels. I can 'restore' this file using winclone, but I am unsure as to what this will do, so I have not tried it yet.

So, to repeat, I am at a loss as to how to complete the first step in the original post that duplicates the Boot Camp drive which I quoted in my first reply. I think I am literate enough to follow the rest of the directions once I get this first one completed.

Thanks for the help.
 
Again -You cannot duplicate Boot Camp
There are some techniques but with no guarantee.
1. Backup Boot Camp using NT backup
2. Install new VM using Parallels Desktop
3. Restore NTBackup into VM
4. Windows repair
 
Thanks!

Thorby-
I can't thank you enough for this info!!!
This problem has been bugging me for some time now and I'm not much of a techie, so thanks for the clear and precise walk-thru. All is working fine now. Yes, this should be in the Parallels Help.
Take care!
 
not for bootcamp drives!

I apologize for the confusion. I had forgotten that Parallels also supports Boot Camp style drive partitions.

My instructions above apply ONLY to a virtual machine that uses a VIRTUAL HARD DISK as described in the Parallels Desktop for Mac User Guide. (I have edited now to say that.)

The virtual drive appears as a named file in the Mac OS X Finder. That is the file you select and duplicate, etc etc.
 
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thorby,

I just wanted to add a big "thank you" for this precise step-by-step description. I just finished this procedure sucessfully, without fail :-)

Bernd
 
This is really great, I don't need to use it now, but this will benefit users greatly, thanks for posting. Now, if I could only find a way to REDUCE the allotted drive space without reinstalling Parallels and Windows, I would be doing great:)
 
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