BoogieLand - VMWare Virtual Machine Image Size Increase For Windows XP

Etienne

8/21/2008 1:44:26 PM

But what if i am using Windows 2003?
It does not allow me to extend!

Etienne

BoogieMan

8/21/2008 9:45:51 PM

Hi Etienne,

I have not done this with Windows 2003. If you are able to explain where it is failing, maybe I can try to help. For example, if Windows 2003 does not have the ability to perform the 2nd step of "Extending" the volume, I would suggest taking that disk, and attaching it to an XP image as an additional disk, and performing that operation using XP. Before trying, I would make sure you have a backup copy of that image you are trying to extend.

I will say that have done the exact same operation on Server 2003 images.

If this doesn't help, maybe you can provide me with a bit more info and I can try to help. If anyone reading this with Windows 2003 image expansion experience, maybe you can chime in too.

Etienne

8/22/2008 12:44:49 PM

Hi, first i must say thanks for your article!
Second i ended up just adding another drive to the VM and moved my SQL Server Database to my second drive.
Thanks though!
Etienne

Ben

5/13/2010 11:22:25 PM

I was able to use a Windows 2003 (VMware) server to extend another Win2k3 (Vmware) machine's partition. I did however find that I had to first assign a drive letter to the partition I wanted to extend. Prior to this, it reported that the partition was RAW and not NTFS.

Something odd also happened the extension. The original system was no longer joined to the domain, but I had no issues re-joining it.

BoogieMan

5/14/2010 4:17:12 PM

Thanks Ben for your comment.

I never ran into the RAW vs NTFS problem. I am not certain as to why you did. Also, my usage for these VM images have always been for testing. As such, I never had any experience with a machine from a domain. Logically it doesn't make sense why it will be removed. However, thanks for the tip. I'm sure it will be useful to others in the future.