Can't Expand Disk

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by SandyGettings, Mar 12, 2017.

  1. SandyGettings

    SandyGettings Bit poster

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    I can expand the virtual disk on the control panel/hardware/hard disk tab to 128 GB. But under the general tab it still shows 85 GB. None of the suggestions I've seen so far works. What may be related is that the boot partition and the new unallocated portion are separated by a small recovery partition (see screen shot). I also note that the "Resize file system" checkbox is gray (disabled).

    How do I fix this so I can expand the disk?
     

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  2. Raj@Parallels

    Raj@Parallels Guest

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    To resolve the issue, please follow the steps as per the KB article.
     
  3. SandyGettings

    SandyGettings Bit poster

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    Thanks for the tip, but I already tried that. The "extend filesystem" command has no effect. If you look at the screen shot I attached, you'll see a smaller (450 MB) recovery partition between my original partition and the new partition for expanding the disk. My guess is that the partition needs to be contiguous to expand. So do I need to delete the recovery partition first (and is that a good idea in the first place)?
     
  4. Ajith1

    Ajith1 Parallels Support

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    Yes, you need to delete the recovery partition then only you can extend the filesystem. Make sure you take a backup of the pvm file before trying the steps. You can also refer to the article for instructions.
     
  5. B__

    B__ Bit poster

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    Hi, sorry to highjack but I have just come across the same issue. I am running Windows 10 and have been through the steps on KB 113972 however get stuck at step #4 as the option to extend is greyed out. I have also tried to extend through <diskpart> as per KB 123372 but also get stopped at step 5 with an insufficient disk space warning however I do have a sizeable 'unallocated' partition showing in Windows.

    In the Parallels configuration for the disk the option to 'Resize the file system' is also greyed out and it would appear the the space available (that used on 'C' and that unallocated) does match the total set by the expanding file system. Not sure if it is relevant but there are three primary partitions showing in Disk Manager. 1 being 'C' and two other small partitions.

    Any help appreciated.
     
  6. B__

    B__ Bit poster

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    Just as a build on the above the two smaller partitions are: 1) GPT Protective Partition, and 2) Primary Partition

    Thanks
     
  7. SandyGettings

    SandyGettings Bit poster

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    I found a workaround in my case. As suggested by Ajith@Parallels above, my active partition was sandwiched between the boot and recovery partitions. The active partition couldn't expand because there wasn't any additional contiguous space available. Deleting the recovery partition solved the problem (but now I don't have any recovery partition at all).
     
  8. @SandyG2 thank you for sharing this workaround.
     
  9. B__

    B__ Bit poster

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    Thanks for the reply, the partition was in the middle of the free space and the 'C' partition however it did not appear to be a recovery partition. I could not see what other use it had so I have deleted and now have two (plus the free space) but the problem still persists, unable to expand in dispart and options greyed out in disk manager. Have attached images.

    The only thing I can think of is that it may be related to the offset...
     

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  10. B__

    B__ Bit poster

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    Just wondering if anyone from the Parallels team had any advice? I am not keen to delete everything and reinstall just from an update...
     
  11. B__

    B__ Bit poster

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    I think I will take this as a sign not to update to 12. Having only had 11 for 10 months I am not seeing this as straight forward as advertised. I will delete Windows and start again. Thanks anyway!
     
  12. MichaelK22

    MichaelK22 Bit poster

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    I was banging my head trying to figure the issue. I broke down and re-read what 'SandyGettings' wrote. Sure, why not, let me try the suggestion by Ajith@Parallels.
    http://kb.parallels.com/123372 was what I did and now I can see the Resize option.
    In the attached screenshot, my Windows 10 VI image does not have the Resize file system. However, running the steps in KB123372, I was able to get the Resize file system option.
     

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  13. PieterH

    PieterH Bit poster

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    I had the same problem. In the end I found a solution that did not require removal of the recovery partition, but did require a third party tool because the issue is mainly caused bij how windows manages the disk (in a terribly old-fashioned way imho).
    This solves the issue for native windows machines, and for windows 10 running in a VM it also does the trick, as I can confirm.
    I started out with the sandwiched C partition, so it looked liked this:

    System Reserved (350 MB) | C: (63,22 GB) | Recovery (450 MB) | Unallocated (64 GB)

    C: had to be extended using the unallocated part. I used the tool described here:
    https://www.tenforums.com/general-s...-c-drive-extend-volume-button-greyed-out.html
    and ended up with this configuration:

    System Reserved (350 MB) | C: (127,22 GB) | Recovery (450 MB)

    A very happy camper indeed.
    (Don't forget to click apply on the top left in the 3rd party tool, as I did the first time...)

    P.S.: When I used the control center/configure/hardware/hard disk to allocate more storage to the VM, I did not even have the Resize file system checkbox. Not just greyed out, it was simply not there. The location of the hard disk settings also seem to be different compared to http://kb.parallels.com/113972
    Does this have anything to do with a different version and therefore configuration structure in parallels?
     
  14. Ajith1

    Ajith1 Parallels Support

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    Hi PieterH,
    We are glad that you have resolved the issue. You can see steps on this article to delete the recovery partition and extend the unallocated space.
     
  15. VincentA1

    VincentA1 Bit poster

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    This worked for me. First I followed https://kb.parallels.com/en/113972 to increase the size of my machine from 128 GB to 256 GB and then I followed the article using diskpart. Tricky part for me was that I had 2 recovery partitions. I had to delete both of them. THANK YOU!
     
  16. AJ@Parallels

    AJ@Parallels

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    Perfect, Please feel free to reach us any time for any queries regarding Parallels.
     

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