forcing a dynamically expanding VHD to expand ?

I have a XP VHD that is set to "Dynamically expanding virtual hard disk"
but I keep getting the low disk space warning in it. I'm having to
uninstall things, compress folders and other tricks to keep the thing
from breaking.

How can I make it auto-expand the size rather than coming up against the
size limit and not expanding ?

The size is currently set at 16,384MB. Luckily, when I let the XP
utility that recovers disk space when it gets low, it got me back 2GB so
I'm going to be OK for a while. I do expect to use that up over the next
year though. I want to let it grow rather than have to treat it as a
fixed size drive.

I've seen the virtual disk wizard option to change it to be a fixed
size, and I imagine if I do that then I can make that fixed size bigger,
but I like the idea of it being auto-expanding. It just won't expand.

Mark Rae [MVP] wrote:
> "d d" <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com> wrote in message
> news:%...
>
>> How can I make it auto-expand the size rather than coming up against
>> the size limit and not expanding ?
>
> I believe you have misunderstood what auto-expand means.
>
> When you create a new virtual hard disk, you have two options - dynamic
> or fixed size. No matter which one you choose, you still must give it a
> maximum size. The only difference is that, with a fixed size VHD, the
> full VHD file will be created immediately.
>
> E.g. if you select a fixed VHD of 16GB, a 16GB VHD file will be created.
> However, if you select a dynamic VHD of 16GB, a much smaller VHD file
> will be created initially, and this file will expand dynamically *UNTIL*
> it reaches its maximum size of 16GB - it won't expand indefinitely...

Thanks Mark, yes it does seem like I misunderstood.

I guess I'm forced to convert it to a fixed size and hope that when
doing that, I get to change the size.

>I guess I'm forced to convert it to a fixed size and hope that when
>doing that, I get to change the size.

You wont be able to.

There's a couple different ways to do it, one being to use a tool like
this:
http://vmtoolkit.com/blogs/announcem...available.aspx

And then using a partition manager in the VM to expand the partition,
another is to use an imaging program and copy and expand your current
partition onto another VHD that's size was set bigger to begin with.

Make sure and make a backup of your original VHD first though!!

--
Bob Comer



On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:26:45 +0100, d d <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com>
wrote:

>Mark Rae [MVP] wrote:
>> "d d" <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com> wrote in message
>> news:%...
>>
>>> How can I make it auto-expand the size rather than coming up against
>>> the size limit and not expanding ?
>>
>> I believe you have misunderstood what auto-expand means.
>>
>> When you create a new virtual hard disk, you have two options - dynamic
>> or fixed size. No matter which one you choose, you still must give it a
>> maximum size. The only difference is that, with a fixed size VHD, the
>> full VHD file will be created immediately.
>>
>> E.g. if you select a fixed VHD of 16GB, a 16GB VHD file will be created.
>> However, if you select a dynamic VHD of 16GB, a much smaller VHD file
>> will be created initially, and this file will expand dynamically *UNTIL*
>> it reaches its maximum size of 16GB - it won't expand indefinitely...
>
>Thanks Mark, yes it does seem like I misunderstood.
>
>I guess I'm forced to convert it to a fixed size and hope that when
>doing that, I get to change the size.

Mark Rae [MVP] wrote:
> "d d" <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com> wrote in message
> news:...
>
>> I guess I'm forced to convert it to a fixed size and hope that when
>> doing that, I get to change the size.
>
> As Bob has explained, you won't be able to do that.
>
> I tend to favour Bob's first suggestion in cases like this.
>
> I've never had a problem with VMToolkit, and I use Partition Magic to
> increase the partition size.
>
> It can be a bit scary at first to boot the VM from a captured floppy
> disk and then to non-destructively increase the active partition on the
> VHD, but it really does work!
>
> I recently did something similar for a client who wanted to upgrade the
> fixed disk in his PC to a much larger one. Took about 15 minutes to
> create an image of the old HD with Acronis, then about two minutes to
> swap the physical drives over, and then about 10 minutes to restore the
> image onto the new HD, and then about another two minutes to expand the
> restored image's partition to fill the whole of the new drive.
>
> "Wow! It must have taken you hours to reinstall Windows and all my
> applications, and you've even kept my desktop exactly as it was..."
>
> At moments like that, all you can do is smile sweetly and raise the
> invoice... ;-)

There's a easier (but not necessarily quicker) way of doing it using
Acronis's clone-disk feature. When I bought my most recent laptop I
wanted twin 500GB drives in it, but the laptop manufacturer wanted way
too much for it. So I went with the cheapest (single) drive they
offered. When it arrived, I plugged one of the 500GB drives I'd bought,
dropped it into a USB2 case and did a clone disk. It's in the operations
menu. It will happily clone to a larger disk and will adjust partitions
as it does so. I'm so impressed with the clone disk feature that I have
backup 500GB drives and use it to maintain a plug-and-go backup. If this
primary drive dies, I'll be back up and running in 2 minutes :-)

Robert Comer wrote:
>> I guess I'm forced to convert it to a fixed size and hope that when
>> doing that, I get to change the size.
>
> You wont be able to.
>
> There's a couple different ways to do it, one being to use a tool like
> this:
> http://vmtoolkit.com/blogs/announcem...available.aspx
>
> And then using a partition manager in the VM to expand the partition,
> another is to use an imaging program and copy and expand your current
> partition onto another VHD that's size was set bigger to begin with.
>
> Make sure and make a backup of your original VHD first though!!

Thanks a lot for that. I'm trying it now. I'll probably use partition
magic to resize the primary partition once it's increased.

You're welcome. You shouldn't run into any problems.

--
Bob Comer


On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:50:11 +0100, d d <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com>
wrote:

>Robert Comer wrote:
>>> I guess I'm forced to convert it to a fixed size and hope that when
>>> doing that, I get to change the size.
>>
>> You wont be able to.
>>
>> There's a couple different ways to do it, one being to use a tool like
>> this:
>> http://vmtoolkit.com/blogs/announcem...available.aspx
>>
>> And then using a partition manager in the VM to expand the partition,
>> another is to use an imaging program and copy and expand your current
>> partition onto another VHD that's size was set bigger to begin with.
>>
>> Make sure and make a backup of your original VHD first though!!
>
>Thanks a lot for that. I'm trying it now. I'll probably use partition
>magic to resize the primary partition once it's increased.

Robert Comer wrote:
> You're welcome. You shouldn't run into any problems.

To complete this thread, you're right, I didn't. The resizer took less
than half an hour to resize my 16GB vhd file. Then I just resized the C:
partition in it using partition magic (takes just a few seconds). The
final resulting vhd file is still only 16GB of course, but now it will
expand up to the max size of 28GB that I set it to.

Thanks for posting back, it might help someone else in the future!

--
Bob Comer


On Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:58:07 +0100, d d <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com>
wrote:

>Robert Comer wrote:
>> You're welcome. You shouldn't run into any problems.
>
>To complete this thread, you're right, I didn't. The resizer took less
>than half an hour to resize my 16GB vhd file. Then I just resized the C:
>partition in it using partition magic (takes just a few seconds). The
>final resulting vhd file is still only 16GB of course, but now it will
>expand up to the max size of 28GB that I set it to.

I know its an old post but I find having a 2nd virtual drive does the trick
(and should be a better way of managing server builds anyway) all the OS
stuff is kept on the 16Gb drive and the 2nd drive is where I keep data, just
means I can restore the main 'C' drive without having to recreate/backup the
websites or SQL databases I run on the VM's also the same 2nd drive can be
used across multiple VM's - NOTE only one VM can access a VHD at anyone time..

cheers,
craig

"Mark Rae [MVP]" wrote:

> "d d" <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com> wrote in message
> news:...
>
> > I guess I'm forced to convert it to a fixed size and hope that when doing
> > that, I get to change the size.
>
> As Bob has explained, you won't be able to do that.
>
> I tend to favour Bob's first suggestion in cases like this.
>
> I've never had a problem with VMToolkit, and I use Partition Magic to
> increase the partition size.
>
> It can be a bit scary at first to boot the VM from a captured floppy disk
> and then to non-destructively increase the active partition on the VHD, but
> it really does work!
>
> I recently did something similar for a client who wanted to upgrade the
> fixed disk in his PC to a much larger one. Took about 15 minutes to create
> an image of the old HD with Acronis, then about two minutes to swap the
> physical drives over, and then about 10 minutes to restore the image onto
> the new HD, and then about another two minutes to expand the restored
> image's partition to fill the whole of the new drive.
>
> "Wow! It must have taken you hours to reinstall Windows and all my
> applications, and you've even kept my desktop exactly as it was..."
>
> At moments like that, all you can do is smile sweetly and raise the
> invoice... ;-)
>
>
> --
> Mark Rae
> ASP.NET MVP
> http://www.markrae.net
>
> .
>