Help with unallocated space - VMWare Fusion 11.3.6.2 ARM

[Victor Orly]

Hello, I recently migrated a client to a new MacBook Pro M4. Installed VMWare Fusion 13.6.2 with Windows 11 Pro ARM. I've allocated 200 GB to the virtual disk, but Windows only shows 63.2 GB, and it is now full.

I've tried with both "pre-allocated" disk space on and off, but I can't seem to get Windows to take all the space.

Windows Disk Management shows the 156 GB of unallocated space, but I can't see to allocate it to the C volume.

Please Help!

Thanks

Victor

[Bigdave1357]

My guess would be that even though you created a 200GB volume within Fusion, when you installed Windows 11 and came to format the volume, you perhaps mistakenly accepted a default size of 64GB offered by the installer. Easy to do.

You've therefore got a 200GB capacity but only 64GB of it is used. In theory that's easy to fix: you simply tell Windows Disk Management to expand the 64GB volume into the free space.

In practice, you may find it more difficult because the installation process may have placed a small recovery partition right after the 64GB, and that will prevent you expanding.

It's not too hard to work around this, if that's the case. You can switch off and remove the recovery partition, then expand your 64GB, leaving a little room to put a fresh recovery partition on the end of your 200GB allocated space.

There are numerous articles on the web about this. I'm sorry but I don't have the relevant information to hand but a quick search should give you the solution you need.

[Technogeezer]

I've found that this is seen most often when you expand a virtual disk of a Windows VM after the VM is installed. (You are also warned after Fusion resizes the virtual disk that you will need to use disk management utilities in the guest to actually use the space).

Expanding an existing Windows virtual boot disk results in the recovery partition bisecting the existing C: drive and the newly allocated space -- and Windows Disk Management can't expand the C: drive unless the unallocated space sits right next to the partition you wish to expand. @Bigdave1357 is correct that the recovery partition needs to be moved to expand the C: drive. (I recommend moving the recovery partition rather than deleting it as some other sources may suggest. The first line of defense against any Windows problems is the recovery partition - not having one means that you'd better have your installation ISO handy at all times and know how to boot from it. 

One article that I've found very useful to move the recovery partition and expand the C: drive is: https://thedxt.ca/2023/06/moving-windows-recovery-partition-correctly/ . It walks you through moving the recovery partition using tools that are built into Windows (no third party tools required) and without having to reboot the VM. 

[Bigdave1357]

Thanks @Technogeezer, that's exactly the URL I was thinking of earlier. I've just found the time to check my bookmarks and I ca see that I've used that same process previously to shift a recovery partition out of the way and allow volume expansion. It works nicely.