Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

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ppgrainbow
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by ppgrainbow »

usmanaziz wrote:Hi, I created a hard disk with 2.5GB and installed Windows XP guest on an Ubuntu host.

However I have used up all the 2.5GB space. Is there a way I can increase the 2.5GB easily?

Thank you
Usman
Try creating a bigger VDI hard disk image first and then use Clonezilla to copy the data from the old hard disk to an newer one. Windows XP requires at least 1.5 GB to 2.5 GB of free disk space upon upgrade or full installation.
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by vbox4me2 »

cskeen wrote:When using Clonezilla Live iso I get from vbox (FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium! System halted. each version. Gparted actualy looks like it works until you boot up vbox.
Then you must be doing something wrong or the ISO is corrupt, it can not be any easier with clonezilla, gparted only comes into play for resizing after using clonezilla to copy diskA to a larger(or smaller) diskB.
IoSonoRa
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by IoSonoRa »

I confirm that the procedure with SystemRescueCd works.
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by mpack »

There is a new solution to this problem, currently for the case of VDI files only. See this topic. This tool has the ability to increase the disk size as an optional step during cloning, meaning you don't have to create and mount a second drive, nor use CloneZilla etc to copy the partition. The tool even lets you keep the old UUID and filename for the clone, meaning you don't have to do any work with VirtualBox at all (*). The only additional step you still have to perform is use some tool like parted on a liveCD to increase the partition size to fill the new disk (and I'm thinking about getting rid of that requirement too). Alternatively, just create a second partition inside the now larger drive.

The tool btw is intended for Windows hosts, but I'm told that it works under Wine too.

(*) Obviously, if you use the option to keep the old UUID then you can't have the old an new VDI registered with VBox at the same time.
abcuser
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by abcuser »

Hi,
I have written how-to few months ago on wiki.virtualbox.org: http://wiki.virtualbox.org/page/User:Abcuser/ExpandVDI
this how-to is not officially confirmed by moderators, but it should do the trick.
Regards
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by mowomo »

Actually I thought the --existing option was used to clone to a larger virtual disk - one that had been created either by the command line or Virtual Media Manager. If you didn't use the option, "VBoxManage clonehd existing_disk_name new_disk_name" would complain that the 'new_disk_name' already existed and would stop on the error.
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by wesblake »

Hi. I used post #5 in my situation, the one by klix, as it seemed the simplest. I had a 10GB vdi, used this to create a 15gb, and used the gparted livecd to resize at the end of the steps.
Everything went fine, accept when I boot to windows xp guest, even though it shows a 15GB partition in the disk manager, the properties on c drive still only shows 10gb with 1gb free, so when I try to install office it still says there's not enough disk space. Anyone run into this before or know why this is? Thanks.
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by MarkCranness »

wesblake wrote:...used the gparted livecd to resize at the end of the steps.
Apparently gparted can't also reconfig Windows XP to use the extra space in the partition.

Various programs can do that for you:
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by Perryg »

MarkCranness wrote:
wesblake wrote:...used the gparted livecd to resize at the end of the steps.
Apparently gparted can't also reconfig Windows XP to use the extra space in the partition.

Various programs can do that for you:
Just to clarify Gparted can reconfigure Xp to use the entire partition. At least the one I use gparted-live-0.4.6-1.iso . I have used it 3 times now (not like you need to use it everyday) and it works like a charm.
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by wesblake »

Thanks all. I too have never had gparted not work, used 0.4.8-1. Anywho, Easeus fixed the problem, thanks!
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by robert1968 »

Hi,

User MPACK made an excellent solution, called CloneVDI.exe it is simple to use, free and fastest ever could be.
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... &start=255
Thanks for mpack.

Regards,Robert
MarkCranness
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by MarkCranness »

CloneVDI is indeed excellent, but it does not (yet) resize partitions, it enlarges VirtualBox virtual disks.
abcuser
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by abcuser »

MarkCranness wrote:CloneVDI is indeed excellent, but it does not (yet) resize partitions, it enlarges VirtualBox virtual disks.
Hi,
I have used CloneVDI to enlarge virtual disk and then download Gparted assign ISO image as CD rom, set is as first boot device and boot VM, then resize partitions with it. It works fine for me. I enlarged partition size from 10 GB to 100 GB.
Regards
abcuser
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Re: Howto increase hard disk size after installing a guest OS

Post by abcuser »

wesblake wrote:Thanks all. I too have never had gparted not work, used 0.4.8-1. Anywho, Easeus fixed the problem, thanks!
Stop using old version of Gparted and download new one from web page. Bugs get fixed several times, new file system get included etc. I know there was some serious bugs in 0.4 version, so download 0.5 version.
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