Many server administrators are preferred to use
VMware Workstation as their test machine. However, when they complete the setting of the
VMware they always find that the original virtual disk is so small that can not meet
their need. How to extend entire virtual disk size becomes a technical matter. Luckily,
be different from physical disk, we could increase VMware disk size by ourselves.
Through search most technical forums, you could find there are three
widespread methods.
Method 1: Using VMware
Converter
Method 2: Using VM Disk Manager
Method 3: Using VM Disk Manager GUI
(only on VMware Workstation 7.0 edition or later)
The method 1 is not always recommend because there's a disadvantage
that VMware Converter will create a new (many GB) copy of your VM. And the method 3
is the easiest way to use, unfortunately, this feature is only added into the VMware
Workstation 7.0 edition or later. Therefore, VM Disk Manager is the master key that
increases virtual disk size. Here we have a tutorial about "How to extend
VMware Disk step by step".
Note: Before the tutorial you should notice some important points,
otherwise the mission may failed.
Ensure the virtual machine is
turned off
Ensure the clone is full, if you
use link clone VM machine you need to make a new full clone
Ensure there's no snapshot
If there's some snapshots when you run the command you may get the
error message as below:
When you get this, you need to remove the snapshot in "Snapshot
Manager". After prepare for it, let's start. In this example our original
virtual disk size is 8 GB, our aim it to increase it to 20GB.
Step1. Turn off the virtual machine; click "Start"=>
"Run"=> type "cmd"
Step2. In the Dos Window, type the follow commands then click "Enter"
"G:/Program Files/vm/vmware-vdsikmanager.exe" –x 20GB "G:/windows
2003 en/Server2003Ent-x64/Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition.vmdk"
Tips: in this command "G:/Program
Files/vm/vmware-vdsikmanager.exe" is the path of the "VMware Disk
Manager.exe". The "-x 20GB" is means the virtual disk will be
extended to 20GB. And the "G:/windows 2003../Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64
Edition.vmdk" is the path of your target virtual disk file.
After step 2 you will find the process of extending VM disk is begin to
work. Just waiting for minutes the operation will be complete.
When the process complete, even though we have extended VMware disk,
our mission is not complete yet. As the "Warning" mentioned, the newly
added space has not been allocated yet and is thus unusable at this point, it is
showed as unallocated space at the end of the virtual disk. We must use third-party
software to extend partition in VM. The AOMEItech Partition Assistant Sever Edition
is the one of the third-party software that be recommended.
Step1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant in VM. Select the partition
you want to extend (here is the system partition) drag the right handle on the
panel, rightwards.
Step2. Click "Apply" on the tool bar, in
the pop-up window click "Proceed" to achieve the operation on the virtual
disk.
After a few seconds, our mission is completed 100%. Follow the tutorial
you may find VM expand disk would never be a hard task. If you want to resize
partition in VM you could free download Partition
Assistant. For different OS, this software has different Versions. Select the right
one for yourself.
Tips: For enterprise administrator, AOMEI Partition Assistant Unlimited
Edition is a better choice to support the unlimited usage within one company.