Increasing disk-size for XP on VMware Fusion

[DisplacedMic]

Hello all - this might be a question better suited for the vmware forums, but i always get such great answers here i thought this was a better starting place.

I am running XP sp3 virtually using VMware Fusion on my Macbook (OS 10.5.8)

I recently tried allocating an additional 60gigs to the disk to the default 40 and I cant seem to get windows to see the additional space.

I shut xp down, slid the bar to 100gig and clicked apply. everything seems fine - but windows still only sees the C: drive as being 40 gigs. is there something i'm doing wrong?

i clicked the two options - 2-gig files and pre-allocate space.

thanks all

 

[panzer06]

Hello all - this might be a question better suited for the vmware forums, but i always get such great answers here i thought this was a better starting place.

I am running XP sp3 virtually using VMware Fusion on my Macbook (OS 10.5.8)

I recently tried allocating an additional 60gigs to the disk to the default 40 and I cant seem to get windows to see the additional space.

I shut xp down, slid the bar to 100gig and clicked apply. everything seems fine - but windows still only sees the C: drive as being 40 gigs. is there something i'm doing wrong?

i clicked the two options - 2-gig files and pre-allocate space.

thanks all

I tried this too and ended up with 2 partitions. I'm sure some IT expert in Windows will answer this one for us. Seems to me this should work. Though I must admit I haven't done a lot of research on finding a solution.

Cheers,

 

[DisplacedMic]

I tried this too and ended up with 2 partitions. I'm sure some IT expert in Windows will answer this one for us. Seems to me this should work. Though I must admit I haven't done a lot of research on finding a solution.

Cheers,

intersting - so maybe it's unallocated space? i've only been away from pcs for a little while now - it's amazing how quickly you forget.

anyway - should i put a copy of partition magic in there and try and reclaim the space

 

[panzer06]

intersting - so maybe it's unallocated space? i've only been away from pcs for a little while now - it's amazing how quickly you forget.

anyway - should i put a copy of partition magic in there and try and reclaim the space

Hmmm looks like vmware agrees with you.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004071

OK, so the free UK software PartitionLogic works.

After expanding the size of the virtual disk within VMware Fusion download the PartitionLogic ISO from here, connect it to your VM and follow the instructions below to force the VM to boot from the ISO.

VMware Instructions for booting from CD in Fusion so that PartitionLogic boots:

Mount your Windows ISO or put the Windows disk in the drive and make sure the CD drive is connected by looking in Virtual Machine > Settings > CDs & DVDs and selecting Connected.
As soon as your virtual machine starts, press ESC to get the Boot menu. Choose the boot from the CD-ROM drive option.

If you can not press ESC fast enough, add a delay to the BIOS screen:

Right-click on the virtual machine from the Virtual Machine Library window and click Show in finder.
Right-click on the virtual machine package that is highlighted and click Show package contents.
Right-click on the .vmx file and click Open with > Other and select TextEdit.
Paste bios.bootDelay = "5000" at the bottom of the .vmx file.

Once you've booted into PartitionLogic follow the onscreen instructions and RESIZE your partition. You can express the new size in MB (m) or Cylinders (c). I used MB since I have no idea how cylinders are expressed. I had an original 15GB Windows XP partition with 60GB unallocated in my newly expanded 75GB VM. Partitionlogic showed 76800MB available for my resized partition but I could only get 75000m to work in the provided field so I have a 792mb unallocated space in Windows. Other than that it worked great. Tested Notes, Outlook, Word, IE, etc. I now have just about 60GB free and the VM is much more responsive.

As always take care to backup your VM before messing around with partitioning utilities.

Cheers,

 

[panzer06]

Seems Windows 7 in VMware Fusion 3.0 doesn't have this problem

In working on another Mac today I discovered Windows 7 used scsi (XP on our Mac is using IDE) as the disk type and when I went to disk management in Windows 7 it allowed me to extend the disk into the unallocated space with no difficulty. Perhaps Vista works this way as well. We don't have anyone running Vista under Fusion; it was just too slow.

Cheers,

 

[lyanaz]

Same problem. But solved

Use this simple and free partition tool. It works like charm for me. All you have to do is, expand your partition. No reboot or nothing required. [I am assuming that you have free unallocated space]

http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Partition-Master-Home-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html