I set up my VM with 20GB of space. Windows is using ~8GB, and that 'disk' is full. I compacted the file. Still using ~8GB. Parallels is not expanding the basic disk to provide more space. What can I do to fix this? Thanks, Duncan Parallels 3.0, build 5584 OS X 10.5.2 Windows XP SP2
1. Windows is using 8GB of 20GB hdd's 2. Disk is full. These two things cannot take place at the same time. Please, give more details. May be you have only one partition on disk with 8GB?
I agree - it doesn't make sense to me either. Configuration Editor shows hard disk size as 20000 MB. When I run Windows diskmgmt.msc, it shows disk 0 with 2 partitions: - Primary Partition [c:] 7.80 GB NTFS Free Space 0 - Unallocated partition 11.73 GB If I try to format the unallocated partition, Windows wants to assign a new drive letter, making it a separate drive. How do I fix this so that c: drive will expand? Thanks, Duncan FWIW ~Documents/Parallels/winxp/Windows Disks/winxp.hdd is 7.83 GB
Parallels Desktop is not designed for this. You need to expand your 8Gb partition on virtual disk. There are rest of products for disk partition resizing. You can use Acronis Disk Director for example. Another way is using Parallels Desktop for Mac Premium Edition bundle where Acronis Disk Director is already integrated.
Method to Expand Parallels Disk Image The Parallels disk image size and location is setup during installation. I was conservative, and set it to about 7.8 GB. It turned out that that disk image size was too small, after I installed more software. Parallels offers the Parallels Image Tool.app to "expand" the Windows XP disk image, but after running the application, the Windows XP disk image does not appear to be larger. Nor does that disk image "expand," as Parallels says it will. The problem appears to be that the image "can grow" in size, but neither Parallels nor Windows knows how to use the extra space that was allocated. There are many procedures posted on the Net for expanding the Parallels Windows disk image size, but most rely on using extra partitioning software. The method recommended by Parallels also does not increase the disk image size. Instead, it creates a new disk partition in Windows. I found the following simpler procedure, which worked like a charm. Reproduced here, with the grammar and instructions cleaned up a bit. http://deseloper.org/read/2006/12/expanding-a-parallels-disk-imagewhat-they-dont-tell-you/ Expanding a Parallels Disk Image. What They Dont Tell You. On the initial install of Windows XP under Parallels, I was very conservative in the disk space I allocated to it. After Windows repeatedly yelling at me to do something about the lack of disk space I figured I would. When setting up the Windows Virtual Machine, I had the image set to Expanding. A bit deceiving, for there is a procedure that is not included in the help file for accomplishing this. This procedure allows Windows to see the extra space that Parallels has allocated: 1. Find your hard disk image file on the host machine (in this case Mac OS). Run the Parallels Image Tool.app on it and expand it to the desired size. My Parallels disk image is located in: ~/Library/Parallels/Microsoft Windows XP/winxp.hdd These days, Parallels is installing that image in: ~/Documents/Parallels 2. Use the Finder to duplicate the hard disk image you wish to expand. 3. Open Parallels but do not start Windows. Open the Parallels Preferences for the virtual machine. Change the hard disk image path to the duplicate image. (Note, this is not the "Default Folder for Virtual Machine" setting you first see. It is the Hard Disk setting, lower on the Preferences screen.) 4. Add a new hard disk via the Add button at the bottom of the screen. Set the new hard disk's path to the original image. The purpose of this and the above step is to boot from the duplicate disk, so that Windows can have full access to the disk (original image) you wish to expand. 5. Boot up Windows. Windows will report that it has identified new hardware. After that is finished, then navigate to Start -> Run. Type <DISKPART> (no <chevrons> and no quotes), and press Run/Enter. 6. In the new window that appears type: <list volume> <return> 7. After that process runs, a list of disks appears. Notice that Volume 1 and Volume 2 look identical. Note: Volume 2 should be the original hard disk image. 8. Select Volume 2 by typing: <select volume 2> <return>. Then extend it by typing <extend> <return>. Once that is complete type <exit> <return>. Then shut down Windows. 9. Before starting Windows, clean up the Virtual Machine preferences by using the Parallels preferences to delete the second hard disk, and to switch the Hard Disk 1 path back to the original hard disk image. You can put the duplicated Win XP hard disk image into the Mac Trash. 10. Restart Windows. Rebooting may be necessary if Windows "detects new hardware."
Didn't work. I'm using Windows 2000, but assume the procedure is similar. One of the things I noticed is that diskpart.exe may not be installed, which can be inconvenient if you haven't installed it before cloning the second HDD. Ultimately I got it installed and got a "success" message after extending the partition. Diskpart says it was expanded to 31GB. However, after I cleaned up and booted back into the disk that had been expanded, it wasn't. I ran diskpart on the partition just to check, and it says 31GB, but when I look at the volume in My Computer it just reads the old 8GB. I've tried about everything I can think of, so about the only thing left is to just delete the installation and start over from scratch. BTW, the original instructions suggest changing the disk type to non-expanding (can't recall what it's actually called) before cloning, then doing the expansion on the original disk (but not on the clone). I may have missed the boat on that. It's actually a pretty confusing procedure, and it's easy to screw it up. Oh yeah, you can't just type DISKPART, even if it is installed in Win 2000. You have to specify the path, which is usually something like "C:\Program Files\Resource Kit\diskpart.exe". It would probably have been faster to just erase the installation initially, rather than go through this rigmarole and end up with nothing. What a pain.
