increase disk size on windows vm

[strox84]

Hi,

im in desperate need of support and I'm hoping someone can help me or guide me in the right direction.

I need to increase the size of my windows vm.

hope to hear from someone soon.

Regads
Shaun

 

[Hannes Laimer]

Hey,

when you click the disk in the "Hardware"-tab of the VM, you can "Resize" it under "Disk Action". Then you should be able to increase the size of your partition in Windows using Windows Disk Management[1].

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/overview-of-disk-management

 

[triks]

Expanding the windows partition should work providing you have more than 2GB of free space on your current windows drive.

In my situation I have 900MB so recreating the Windows VM is the only option - even 3rd party software like AEOMI can't extend the partition. I should have known allocating 25GB for Windows 11x64 is barely enough after updates.

 

[LnxBil]

Expanding the windows partition should work providing you have more than 2GB of free space on your current windows drive.

In my situation I have 900MB so recreating the Windows VM is the only option - even 3rd party software like AEOMI can't extend the partition. I should have known allocating 25GB for Windows 11x64 is barely enough after updates.

What about the recovery partition? Often it is the 3rd partition after UEFI and your windows system partition. Even if you increase your underlying disk, the recovery partition is in the way of any windows system partition resizing. Just delete the recovery partion and you'll be able to resize/expand your windows system partition.

 

[Nuke Bloodaxe]

Of course, if you don't want to go all Conan the Barbarian on your recovery partition, you can move it. I commonly use an Ubuntu ISO for this; just boot into it on the VM, open GParted, and move the partition to the end of the resized disk.

It's mentioned partway down this, with pictures: https://4sysops.com/archives/move-windows-recovery-partition-using-gparted/

GParted via Ubuntu has been one of my major goto tools for working on all sorts of equipment

 

[tonci]

Hi to all, I'm not sure the way above works any more. I used to do resizing this way for a long time, but "nowadays" it's just not working any more ... for me . Gparted moved recovery partition "successfully", but w11 sees it still on the same previous place: ...




.... even when gparted deletes this recovery partition -> no change too ... it still appears in win11

Any advice would be very appreciated

Thank you in advance

BR

Tonči

 

[tonci]

Latest info : no ther tools (acronis, aomei, ... ) sees disk at all!
But if we change interface from virtio back to IDE then w11 sees recovery partition at the end and we can increase c: disk. BUT, then it works only in IDE mode and not in Virtio ... If we change to Virtio blue screen appears : no boot device accessible .. etc

 

[tonci]

Win10 partions can be managed by gparted w/o any problems !

 

[devaux]

Latest info : no ther tools (acronis, aomei, ... ) sees disk at all!
But if we change interface from virtio back to IDE then w11 sees recovery partition at the end and we can increase c: disk. BUT, then it works only in IDE mode and not in Virtio ... If we change to Virtio blue screen appears : no boot device accessible .. etc

It's essential if you attach the disk as "virtio" or "SCSI" when you use Virtio-SCSI-Controller (It is somewhat misleading that the Virtio SCSI controller has virtio AND SCSI modes - and that there is also “normal” SCSI controller emulation, which has nothing at all to do with virtio.). They have different drivers in Windows. So if you had your Disk running connected as "virtio", then it won't work as "scsi" - and vice versa. btw. it's recommended to use the disk connected as scsi since virtio will be depricated in future.

If you can't get it running this way, you need to boot into the recovery console (if it's still working on the disk or from a Windows Boot DVD). Then you need to initialize the disk and apply the scsi-virtio drivers:

In this scenario D: is the CD with the virtio-drivers and C: is the windows-partition

Loading the driver so the rescue-system can see the Windows-partition:

drvload.exe D:\viostor\w10\amd64\vioscsi.inf

Integrate the vioscsi driver into your Windows-Installation:

 dism /image:c:\ /add-driver /driver:d:\viostor\w10\amd64\vioscsi.inf

Windows should boot now.

 

[Kingneutron]

Expanding the windows partition should work providing you have more than 2GB of free space on your current windows drive.

In my situation I have 900MB so recreating the Windows VM is the only option - even 3rd party software like AEOMI can't extend the partition. I should have known allocating 25GB for Windows 11x64 is barely enough after updates.

25GB?! Try more like 80GB minimum just for C: (if you want breathing room) after you install Libreoffice, other useful apps, and most of the goodies from choco

Instead of recreating the VM you might just uninstall some apps, create D: drive and reinstall them to that. And move all your data / My Documents and stuff to D:

Also run a cleaner app and delete IE cache, etc - there's probably a lot of cruft that can be gotten rid of.

Remember, we used to have like 20GB mechanical drives for Windows - the resize app may need a minimum amount of free space, but I should think gparted would be able to resize C: if you boot into systemrescuecd. Never tried it with that tiny amount of free disk space tho

Last resort, try just moving the end of the partition with parted - after snapshot/backup of course:

https://sirlagz.net/2023/07/03/updated-live-resize-lvm-on-linux/

EDIT: I just tested this in a VM, and systemrescuecd + gparted was successfully able to resize an (unmounted) 25GB NTFS partition with ~950MB free space up +2GB. This was a data/test disk, not a full Windows install, so you may need to turn off "fast boot" and hibernation in the VM before trying

 

[rjblake]

Hi to all, I'm not sure the way above works any more. I used to do resizing this way for a long time, but "nowadays" it's just not working any more ... for me . Gparted moved recovery partition "successfully", but w11 sees it still on the same previous place: ...

View attachment 69045
View attachment 69044

.... even when gparted deletes this recovery partition -> no change too ... it still appears in win11

Any advice would be very appreciated

Thank you in advance

BR

Tonči

From Disk Management, you need to go to Action->Rescan Disks after you make the changes with Gparted. Once you do this, Windows will show partitions in the correct order. I've just checked this on a Windows 11 VM I have and it works without issue.

 

[DonnerGunther]

You can also use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free. https://de.minitool.com/partition-manager/partition-wizard-startseite.html

You have to install it inside of your VM.

I had an old version (V9), and it works for my Windows 11 VM. I moved the recovery partition to the end of the virtual drive, then expanded the main partition and pressed "Apply". After that, I immediately saw the new size in computer.