I am trying to add a 2nd hard disk drive to a VM running Windows XP Home. I am able to add the drive to the VM configuration. When I start the VM there are 2 HDD icons in the Parallels status bar. The status of both drives is 'connected'. When I run the device manager in XP there are 2 HDDs listed, Virtual HDD [0] and Virtual HDD [1]. So far, so good. But when I open Windows Explorer there is only one hard disk (C: ). The CDROM drive is D: and I can't figure out how to get to the 2nd (virtual) hard drive. Is there something else I need to do to make the drive accessible from Windows?
Please don't take my word for it. However I THINK that you can expand your original HDD as big as you want without losing any data. If you need more HD space. I THINK that's the case with Parallels. Anyhow please don't try this until you get more confirmation from other people.
Steve, Thanks for the reply. Yes, I believe you can expand a HDD but I would like to have 2 drives for ease of backup. I plan to put apps on the C drive and data on the 2nd drive. That way I only have to back up the 2nd drive with any frequency. In the event of a problem, apps can always be re-installed.
You need to format the disk. Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management Go to the "Storage" tab, and you should be able to partition and format the new drive.
An Important Disk Management Detail Thanks for the information about adding the second disk--it worked! I did get hung up for quite a while on having the second disk get recognized, and wanted to pass along an important detail. With the second disk listed in the Disk Management dialog box, you have to right-click on the Non-Allocated graphic box, not the disk name, to see a pop-up that includes the Add Partition option, which allows you to add the partition and format it.
