maximum virtual hard drive size?

My Windows XP Parallels folder size is currently around 20 gigs in size.

Parallels is showing a virtual hard disk size of 33 gigs at boot up.

Will that 33 gig allotment expand as required, or is the 33 gig allotment my absolute ceiling. I have chosen a dynamic disk size in my setup, rather than a fixed disk.

Many thanks in advance.

Greg.

 

Nope. Expanding disks are not compatible with Windows. Take a look at the sticky about resizing a windows partition on how to expand the disk if you need to.

Edit: My comment was in reference to his question about discs automatically expanding... They ARE incompatible in that they don't do their defined manner of use. They are compatible in that they work... But it is that 'half-@$$ed' way of working when things don't expand like they are supposed to.

 

Excuse me but this is incorrect. Expanding disks work just fine with Windows, but they work differently then one might think at first.

An expanding disk is of fixed size according to the guest OS (including windows). If it gets full on the guest size, then it is just full and additional steps are required in order to migrate to a larger disk. Many howtos on this have been posted to the forum, and I believe at least one is sticky (Search for "How I resized my hard drive")

Expanding disks are called "expanding" because they use less space on the host OS (i.e. on the mac side) and "grow" on the host side until they hit a pre-set by the user maximum value. This maximum value on the host side would be several kbytes larger then the max set size in the guest side.

If you want to make size that you nexer have to resize, then make the max value of a expanding disk equal to the max size that your Mac can handle depending on the size of the drive in your mac.

 

Many thanks. The info is much appreciated.

G.

 

unused_user_name,
You end up expanding it manually, at least the main ways described in the thread we both referenced, anyway... It doesn't work in the manner described, which starts by negating what I said, you HAVE to go through extra steps. If I'm wrong about extra steps, then the second half of what you said is wrong. If I'm right, then your first half is wrong. Take your pick... Not to mention the particular thread/how-to YOU referred to (that's what your search terms brings up) is the SAME one (the sticky I mentioned) I referred to, and it involves converting to a non-expanding disk, which I find true in practice.

Sorry, nice try.