increase hard drive space on vmware

vincentnyc10

i'm trying to run windows update on my windows 2003 server machine on vmware. but i dedicated to 4 gb for this os installed. now i have about 800 mb free and i need to do a service pack 3 install..but no space...how can i increase hdd size for my windows 2003 machine? if not possible, i guess i have to skip this exercise or reinstall windows 2003 with more than 4 gb. someone please let me know...thx in advance.

dynamik

Which product/version are you using? There are command line utilities that could probably fix that for you.

vincentnyc10

dynamik wrote:

Which product/version are you using? There are command line utilities that could probably fix that for you.

vmware server 1.0.1

astorrs

Open a command prompt and change the directory to where VMware Server is installed (e.g. C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server) then execute the following command:

vmware-vdiskmanager -x <new_disk_size> "<path_to_VMDK_file>"

Once you have done that you will need to increase the size within Windows, which brings us to the next question: are you using basic or dynamic disks within Windows?

vincentnyc10

astorrs wrote:

Open a command prompt and change the directory to where VMware Server is installed (e.g. C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server) then execute the following command:

vmware-vdiskmanager -x <new_disk_size> "<path_to_VMDK_file>"

Once you have done that you will need to increase the size within Windows, which brings us to the next question: are you using basic or dynamic disks within Windows?

it's basic...right now i have about 715 mb free out of 4 gb for windows 2003 on just one drive (c:). when u specific to <new_disk_size>...let's say i want it to be 5 gb instead...do i put in the world "5 gb" also if i want to decrease size....can i use this command also or totally messed up my os on vmware?

astorrs

vincentnyc10 wrote:

it's basic...right now i have about 715 mb free out of 4 gb for windows 2003 on just one drive (c:). when u specific to <new_disk_size>...let's say i want it to be 5 gb instead...do i put in the world "5 gb" also if i want to decrease size....can i use this command also or totally messed up my os on vmware?

Yes 5GB (no space) to grow to 5 GB.

No you can't shrink them like this, also you would need to defrag and mark the free space as such prior to any shrink operation - not something you want to do very often.

HeroPsycho

GParted is an easy way to grow the Windows partition to the size of the VMDK.

JDMurray

And while you're at it, upgrade to VMWare Server 1.0.6.

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/