How do I Resize VM Hard drive?

[Idunno26354]

I'm a VMWare customer using VMWare Fusion latest version as of 3/2/2024. I have a Windows 10 virtual image that has two partitions: a boot partition size only 75 GB, and an empty data partition 1.5 TB in size. I want to either copy or move the boot partition to the empty data partition, then make that huge partition the boot partition. Then delete the tiny partition.

Or, if that is impossible, delete the huge partition, that add that unused disk space to the c: boot partition.

Can anybody post the procedure here, or point me to the technical documentation on the vmware site showing how to do that.

 

Thanx...

[Technogeezer]

Thanks for the clarification.

What you want to do is not impossible, but made more difficult by Microsoft. This is not a VMware issue but a Microsoft issue. It occurs when expanding a virtual machine on any virtual platform or if you cloned a physical disk to a larger disk. 

When you first installed Windows with a 75GB (or so) virtual disk, Microsoft put the recovery partition at the end of the 75 GB-ish disk at that time. When you expand a virtual disk in Fusion, you now have unallocated space (not another partition) after the recovery partition and continuing to the end of the newly expanded disk. Note that even though the disk size increased, none of the existing partitions (including the recovery partition) are touched.

The recovery partition now sits between the C drive and the free space. Windows Disk Management will not be able to expand the C drive in this case because it wants the free space to be right next to the partition (the C drive) that you want to expand. 

You should be able to see this in Windows Disk Management, Disk Management should look something like this (in this order) after you've expanded the disk through Fusion :

• the C: drive partition
• the recovery partition (about 600MB)
• a large unused space of a bit less than 1.5 TB.

To allow Windows to expand the C drive, you need to:

• Disable the recovery partition using the command line
• Delete the recovery partition using the command line
• Expand the C drive in Disk Management, but leave 1GB or so empty space at the end of the disk
• Create a new recovery partition in Disk Management
• Set appropriate attributes on the hew recovery partitionusing the command line
• Enable the recovery partition using the command line.

There are two good videos on how to do this, depending on whether you are have configured your VM for BIOS or EFI firmware. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGn7YGwmS1Y (EFI)

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlNtLcFqfOo (legacy BIOS)

 

[xViniciusMedina]

Hi, let me recommend a software that I've used frequently in my VDI production.

First, download the Niubi Partition Tool.

Second, Expand the recovery partition to the right using the available space.

Third, Reduce the recovery partition to the left, and your partition will then have the available space. so you can increase the volume and apply the changes.

[Technogeezer]

 that is certainly an option as well. As is something like Easus. As is using the free Gparted Live ISO (on Intel Macs).

The method and videos I posted while being a bit more "low level", have the advantage that the tasks are accomplished using Microsoft tools, and they work on both X64 and ARM Windows. 

[xViniciusMedina]

Thank you! Your workaround sounds interesting. I shared a method I use and tested for my environment. Anyway, resizing partitions should be done with caution because support may not cover data loss. I say this because I worked for 9 years in VMware engineering at a Big Tech company like Microsoft... The guidance is to back up and rebuild if necessary.

[Technogeezer]

---

 wrote:

Thank you! Your workaround sounds interesting. I shared a method I use and tested for my environment. Anyway, resizing partitions should be done with caution because support may not cover data loss. I say this because I worked for 9 years in VMware engineering at a Big Tech company like Microsoft... The guidance is to back up and rebuild if necessary.

---

The good thing is that there's more than one way to do it. The bad thing is there's more than one way to do it.

Agree 100% that you have to be careful when resizing partitions. And with the guidance to back up the VM before doing anything. 

[xViniciusMedina]