How to Attach separate .vdi for additional storage

[masmith79]

Hey gang, I am VERY new to VBox and virtualization in general. I run OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 and am attempting to run Windows 7 on Virtual Box 3.1.0. I have Windows 7 up and running to my satisfaction but, do to short-sightedness, I made the virtual .vdi only 20gigs. Now, I have done some research and it would appear enlarging the vdi is impossible if not near impossible. One though I had was creating a new vdi and attaching it as if it were another hard drive. Can this be done? If so, how would I go about it? If not, are there any solutions to my space issue? Thank you so much for your time, if you are an admin associated with the VBox project, great job!

[tb2571989]

While not possible to increase a virtual hard disk, its is possible to create a new, larger hard disk and "clone" the small to the large. however, to do this you do need to know how to attach another hard disk.

1. Click on "Settings" of the windows 7 virtual machine
2. Under "storage" under the IDE Controller, click "add hard disk" (the one with disks stacked on top of one another with a +)
3. under "attributes" on the right-hand side, under "hard disk" click on the small icon of a folder with a green arrow pointing up
4. Click on New
5. Create a new virtual hard disk
6. Click on "select"
7. Boot into windows 7, right click on "computer" and choose "manage"
8. Choose "Disk Management"
9. a window will pop up asking you to activate the disk.
10. got to my computer and the second disk should be there as E: or similar.

[masmith79]

While not possible to increase a virtual hard disk, its is possible to create a new, larger hard disk and "clone" the small to the large. however, to do this you do need to know how to attach another hard disk.

1. Click on "Settings" of the windows 7 virtual machine
2. Under "storage" under the IDE Controller, click "add hard disk" (the one with disks stacked on top of one another with a +)
3. under "attributes" on the right-hand side, under "hard disk" click on the small icon of a folder with a green arrow pointing up
4. Click on New
5. Create a new virtual hard disk
6. Click on "select"
7. Boot into windows 7, right click on "computer" and choose "manage"
8. Choose "Disk Management"
9. a window will pop up asking you to activate the disk.
10. got to my computer and the second disk should be there as E: or similar.

Thank you, tb2571989. Your instructions were clear and helpful. I had to do one final step that you did not mention (though it may not apply to everyone). Once I activated the disk, I had to format it. After that was done, all was right with the world. Thank you, again. Hopefully, with time, I will be able to help in addition to beg lol

Cheers

[tb2571989]

Well, I knew there was something I forgot to do, mention the format. Only critical things in that point is a quick format is reccomened, otherwise a non quick format on a 60GB+ VHD will be, well, non quick.

[MarkCranness]

Now, I have done some research and it would appear enlarging the vdi is impossible if not near impossible.

Actually, enlarging a VDI and a partition on that VDI is mostly routine, once you know how to do it.

CloneVDI can enlarge a VDI (it makes a copy, but can enlarge the copy in the process).
EASEUS Partition Manager can resize the partition.
OR GParted can resize the partition.

CloneVDI: http://forum.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22422
GParted LiveCD: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
Gparted resizing: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/re ... sizing.htm

Googling for 'VDI resize' finds much confusing information, but simply use CloneVDI then GParted works.