October 24, 2010 at 11:41 am
Anyone know of a good reference that tells how to expand a VMWare Workstation 6.5 virtual disk file, and have it properly show up in an XP guest OS?
I have a base VM that is sitting at 6GB. I copied it, and have expanded it to 15GB with vmware-vdiskmanager.exe.
I then booted into a Knoppix distro, and used QTParted to expand the partition size to 15GB.
At this point, VM Workstation sees it as a 15GB disk.
When I power on this VM, in XP's "Disk Management", it sees it as a 15GB partition in the graphical representation (bottom part); however in the table (top part) it sees it with a capacity 5.99GB, and with only 1.16GB free. This is what it reports to programs as available space, so I can't do things like install SQL 2008 on this VM.
I have also tried booting into a VM where it runs the XP "FixMBR" on this media from the Repair option on the XP installation media.
And I've tried using the VMWare Converter to convert the base image into a new VM with a larger size.
In short, I've done everything that I can find by googling this, but nothing is working.
Thanks!
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
October 24, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Wish I had anything for you other than use the VMWAre Converter util to create a VM with a larger disk as it does the conversion. That's always been the way I've accomplished such tasks, but it looks like that didn't work for you. Do you still have the original vm, or is the original on the one you already hacked about with knoppix?
You might try to use the XP sysprep application to make it run the mini setup wizard which will check for new hardware and perhaps pick up the change?
Also you might try to take an image with ghost or something similar and then use that to create the new vm with the larger disks. The converter can work with ghost images of a certain version (don't rememebr which).
-Luke.
October 25, 2010 at 11:51 am
WayneS (10/24/2010)
Anyone know of a good reference that tells how to expand a VMWare Workstation 6.5 virtual disk file, and have it properly show up in an XP guest OS?I have a base VM that is sitting at 6GB. I copied it, and have expanded it to 15GB with vmware-vdiskmanager.exe.
I then booted into a Knoppix distro, and used QTParted to expand the partition size to 15GB.
At this point, VM Workstation sees it as a 15GB disk.
When I power on this VM, in XP's "Disk Management", it sees it as a 15GB partition in the graphical representation (bottom part); however in the table (top part) it sees it with a capacity 5.99GB, and with only 1.16GB free. This is what it reports to programs as available space, so I can't do things like install SQL 2008 on this VM.
I have also tried booting into a VM where it runs the XP "FixMBR" on this media from the Repair option on the XP installation media.
And I've tried using the VMWare Converter to convert the base image into a new VM with a larger size.
In short, I've done everything that I can find by googling this, but nothing is working.
Thanks!
Here's a couple of links that helped me do just that on a couple of W2K3 servers:
http://www.vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=2k3resize
http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-magic/resize-partition-under-windows.html
HTH,
Rich
October 25, 2010 at 3:12 pm
rmechaber (10/25/2010)
WayneS (10/24/2010)
Anyone know of a good reference that tells how to expand a VMWare Workstation 6.5 virtual disk file, and have it properly show up in an XP guest OS?I have a base VM that is sitting at 6GB. I copied it, and have expanded it to 15GB with vmware-vdiskmanager.exe.
I then booted into a Knoppix distro, and used QTParted to expand the partition size to 15GB.
At this point, VM Workstation sees it as a 15GB disk.
When I power on this VM, in XP's "Disk Management", it sees it as a 15GB partition in the graphical representation (bottom part); however in the table (top part) it sees it with a capacity 5.99GB, and with only 1.16GB free. This is what it reports to programs as available space, so I can't do things like install SQL 2008 on this VM.
I have also tried booting into a VM where it runs the XP "FixMBR" on this media from the Repair option on the XP installation media.
And I've tried using the VMWare Converter to convert the base image into a new VM with a larger size.
In short, I've done everything that I can find by googling this, but nothing is working.
Thanks!
Here's a couple of links that helped me do just that on a couple of W2K3 servers:
http://www.vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=2k3resize
http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-magic/resize-partition-under-windows.html
HTH,
Rich
Rich,
Thanks for the links - I'll be looking into them shortly.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
October 25, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Did you try right clicking and doing Rescan Disks?
Did you also check it in diskpart to see if you get the same results there?
October 25, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Okay, it looks like I got it working.
What I did:
1. Used the VM Converter tool to copy my base VM to a new VM.
2. Used vmware-vdiskmanager to expand the disk.
3. Attached the vmdk file as a hard disk to a 3rd windows-based VM, and booted into that VM.
4. Used diskpart to extend the drive.
5. Shut down the 3rd VM, and detached the vmdk file.
This properly expanded the drive, and shows the proper free space.
The 3rd VM was necessary because in copying the base VM, it keeps the file identifier from the base VM. The base VM won't start up with two drives with the same identifier.
The only issue I had: I need to reactivate windows within 3 days, because the hardware has "substantially changed". Darn Windows Genuine Advantage program...
After re-activating Windows on this VM, I guess I'll be using it as my new base VM, with a larger drive.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
October 26, 2010 at 6:29 am
OK, so just outta curiosity, what VMWare software are you using? I haven't upgraded to vSphere 4 yet (still running a mostly esx 3.5 shop) but when I use the converter it gives me the opportunity to re-size the drives during the conversion process(I clone to a new vm (so new drives-vmdks, new drive id's I believe as well). When I then boot the vm everything just works after windows scans for new hardware. I've done this mostly with Server OS's in a P2V situation, but we did it with a few workstation os's (2k Pro and XP SP3) as well. Have I just always been lucky? We only ever really had problems with a few linux machines that we found were caused by a bug in the converter which was patched in the next release.
Is the converter that they ship with the workstation tools more limited, or have you not upgraded to the most current version?
Just trying to get a bit more information in case I ever see this sort of thing in our environment.
thanks,
-Luke.
October 26, 2010 at 9:07 am
I'm using VMWare Workstation 6.5. Let me know if you want to see version numbers... I can dig those up tonight.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
October 26, 2010 at 9:23 am
Nope, I don't think I really need version numbers, I was more interested in which VMWare workstation product you were using. Workstation, Fusion, Player, Server, etc... Also, you might want to check on the converter version you're using... I've no idea what may have come with Workstation 6.5 or what it's capabilities are, but the latest and greatest standalone converter is 4.3 (release notes.) The 4.x converters are what I was talking about when I said I just re-size the disks during the conversion process. Not sure if this is a new feature or not. Thanks for the additional info.
-Luke.
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