Problem with Image Tools

P

peterwor

Hunter
I used Image Tools two day sago to expand my initial HD image from 10G to 15G and in the PW console it says that the HD is 15G , however when I boot into WinXP and look at the properties of my Drive C: it tells me that I'm still using a 10G drive. What's going on?
has anyone else expanded their drive with image tools and has it actually worked?

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
PeterWor
 
Ohhhh... I just realized that this is how the tool is supposed to perform. This seems a ittle short sighted, as it turns out I had to use presizer to actually increase the Windows portion of the image.
I guess PW would have had to make a specific reizing tool for each guest OS which I can see as a little sticky but having said that, why go halfway?

At any rate, I realize now that this is the way PW designed the tool to work, my mad for not realizing that.

Cheers,
Peter
 
Sorry, I am left a little confused. I also used Image Tool to resize my disk image, but Windows sees the old size with the new addition unallocated. Do I need to do anything else, or will it simply expand as it needs up to the new limit? There is nothing I could find in the documentation of Image Tool to answer this.
 
netdog said:
Sorry, I am left a little confused. I also used Image Tool to resize my disk image, but Windows sees the old size with the new addition unallocated. Do I need to do anything else, or will it simply expand as it needs up to the new limit? There is nothing I could find in the documentation of Image Tool to answer this.
Click to expand...

Netdog,
The Image Tool will resize the 'physical' disk, but not the volumes on the disk. It's logically the same as taking a, say, 40GB drive and copying it to a 80GB drive. You'll end up with a 40GB volume, and a bunch of unused space at the end of the 'physical' disk.

You then have two options:
1) Use a tool to expand the existing volume to use the full 80GB. Partition Magic and a number of other tools acna accomplish this; use Google or search the forums for others' very good desrciptions of how to do this.

2) Use OS tools (such as the Disk Manager in XP) to create a new volume, or resize the partition. This is an OS specific thing, and you'll likely end up with a C:, D:, etc partition.

Ideally, the Image Tool would do (1) automagically, but it's very OS and partition type specific. They'd need to support various FAT32, NTFS, HFS, EXT3, etc., partitions... maybe in time; we can all hope. At least in the mean time we can use more manual tools to extend the 'tiny' partitions we allocated back in Beta 2.
 
Very dissapointing that I just had to spend another $70 to increase the size of my partition. Early on, it would have been nice if Parallels had given a warning about this, rather than saying that we could resize our partition using the forthcoming and bundled Image Tool. I would have selected a larger partition from the outset. Anyway, thanks for the tip chartb. $70 later, I have my expanded partition, and without your help, I would still be limited to 4GB, or forced to reinstall Windows and all of the applications that I have already been put in place. For my software, extending to a D: drive wasn't an option, so thanks. You saved the day.
 
netdog said:
...Windows sees the old size with the new addition unallocated.....
Click to expand...

How true,

I experienced the same. I thought that the ImageTool was smart enough to enlarge the C: disk to the new available size because after expanding the VM I got a message that no further actions were needed. And that is not true. Im Windows you have to asign a drive characte E: and a name to the new partition before it can be used.

I like to know if there is a possibility to delete the new E: partition and to expand the C: drive to the full available size.

Can someone give some info how to do this ?

Regards Wim.
 
I looked into an open source program called nftsresize, but it seemed that you needed to boot off of a Linux disk which, even if you can do it on an Intel Mac, would take you out of this VM, and therefore it is no longer a partition the program, but just an hdd file.

Honestly, I hunted around this morning and came to the conclusion that you either have to buy Symantec's Norton Partition Magic (a $69.95 download/£39.95 at the UK site), use the new space as a second drive, or do a full reinstall of your virtual machine, starting with Windows and then all of the applications you already have in place on your existing VM (assuming that you need all of them).

For more information, go to www.symantec.com and select the appropriate country as it would not let me buy PM8 from the USA store, but it worked fine once I switched to the UK store.

Perhaps others have another solution, but that works. Make sure that you have room on your drive for the PM8 download and the install. LOL
 
netdog said:
I looked into an open source program called nftsresize, but it seemed that you needed to boot off of a Linux disk which, even if you can do it on an Intel Mac, would take you out of this VM, and therefore it is no longer a partition the program, but just an hdd file.
Click to expand...

netdog,
You shold be able to use the free ntfsresize (http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html) by using a Knoppix Live CD, or the equivilent. Download the ISO in the host OS, and then tell Parallels to connect the CD to the image in the VM configuration. Set the Boot Priority to CD first. When you start the VM, the image on the 'CD' should run, getting you into Knoppix.
I'd suggest that Partition Magic is a better bet for those not fluent in Linux, but it's at least possible to do it for free if you are so inclined...
 
My lack of fluency was no doubt the problem. Having relaxed about it a bit, I am now actually glad that I have such a good tool.

It might be good if somebody could write up a brief step by step for people who do want to use nftsresize though.
 
I just completed this process successfully.

I downloaded the GParted iso CD image file (free).
Set up a Parallels VM with this iso file as the "CD", set VM type to Linux (other),
set boot order to boot from the CD.
Made a copy of the too-small hdd file, and added that copy to the VM.

Booted the new VM.
It takes a while, then after a while a screen for changing boot options appears, but you can skip straight to Done.
A nice GUI comes up.
The hdd is displayed, with the current partition and the unalocaged space as contiguous bars.
It reports the partition as FAT32, which is not true - it's NTFS.
I clicked on I forget what (Resize/Move, I think) to specify that I wanted to extend the first partition.
Typed in the maximum size suggested on the screen.
Clicked the Check-Mark to begin the repartitioning.

An error message said that there was some mismatch of bytes in the boot record.
Nevertheless, the process seems to have completed successfully.
When completed, the graphic showed all the space allocated to the boot partition.
I can boot Windows on the new resized partition, and copy files there using the space.
 
I tried System Rescue (Linux) but got a ped_system_...error. Tried Gparted and it worked fine... I got the same error CyberTubby got but the disk is expanded and usable...
 
netdog said:
I looked into an open source program called nftsresize, but it seemed that you needed to boot off of a Linux disk which, even if you can do it on an Intel Mac, would take you out of this VM, and therefore it is no longer a partition the program, but just an hdd file.

Honestly, I hunted around this morning and came to the conclusion that you either have to buy Symantec's Norton Partition Magic (a $69.95 download/£39.95 at the UK site), use the new space as a second drive, or do a full reinstall of your virtual machine, starting with Windows and then all of the applications you already have in place on your existing VM (assuming that you need all of them).

For more information, go to www.symantec.com and select the appropriate country as it would not let me buy PM8 from the USA store, but it worked fine once I switched to the UK store.

Perhaps others have another solution, but that works. Make sure that you have room on your drive for the PM8 download and the install. LOL
Click to expand...

This is why i think this thread
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=1481&highlight=Increase
should be a sticky
 
WOW I am in the process of trying to change my disk space size. After getting throughly confused, I found this thread. You guys sound like rocket scientist to me, totally on another level.

Here is what I'm not knowing completely how to do. In order to download the free GParted iso where do I go? Also how do I make a copy of the Hard drive?

My current size is 8000 mg, I want to increase that to 13 gigs so I assume that is 13000 mg, is that correct? I think if I can get straight on these items I can find my way. Can anyone clear me up.

Thanks in advance
jsimp3 (Joe)
 
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