Comments on: Expanding a drive within a VMWare image

By: James

James — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:35:08 +0000

expand system drive with dells extpart.exe without shutting down.
command = extpart.exe c: 1024

By: tv

tv — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 08:56:57 +0000

Thanks a lot!

By: Gest

Gest — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:38:06 +0000

Good one.

You can check video demonstration at

http://windows.cskatta.co.in/?p=245

By: ny3tclip

ny3tclip — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:41:50 +0000

awesome! Thanks for the help.

By: chessplayer

chessplayer — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:37:23 +0000

Thanks alot! nice documentation!!

i am a total linux noob, too.
I tried gparted, because its much smaller, windows users don ‘ t be afraid – there is a graphical user interface.

problems i had in command line with vmware-vdiskmanager: you should write the complete file name of the vmdk file (don ‘t use the ” * ” abreviation. Regardless u will have “failed to open the disk .. failed to lock the file vdiskmanager (16392)”
thx!!

By: matt

matt — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:12:50 +0000

ADRIANE-KNOPPIX is bullshit… not at all user friendly…
1. expand hard disk first using vmware/work station settings when the system is shutdown/powered off
2. download Partition Magic or something install it and add merg the unallocated parecian to the existing one…
u r done..

By: MBarnickle

MBarnickle — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 06:59:20 +0000

Thanks for the info Sean, your work on this is appreciated. BTW, I was following your procedure #2 and found that Windows 2008 Server (enterprise) allows you to expand the partition without needing Knoppix. I had a full system partition, and i extended it (from 30Gb to 100Gb). After that I was able to change the partion size to make use of the full 100Gb in drive manager, which has to be new in 2008 server or I missed it in 2003.

It worked like a charm. I’d never have tried it at all without your procedure. Definitely easier than doing BESR backups and VM restores.

Cheers!

By: Wayne

Wayne — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:51:34 +0000

Thank you so much! I have been looking for a solution to increase the size of the system patition on guest machines on esxi and this worked! I came across many soultions but this one was clear cut and accurate! unlike my spelling!

Thanks again!

Wayne

By: Ali

Ali — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 06:00:19 +0000

EXT part is the fastest way to do this t took me about 2 mins !!!!!!!!

Following is the process

1. extend your VMdisk. My original was 20 so i extend by 10

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 30GB “Terdata12.vmdk”

2.download ExtPart… from
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R64398&formatcnt=2&fileid=83929.

3.Go into the VM and from command line

extpart c: 10240 (to extend by 10GB )

Voila

Done 2mins

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:57:45 +0000

You can also use a free Dell tool named ExtPart… it doesn’t even require a reboot in most cases