virtualbox.org

Hello everyone.
I would like to change the size of my guest system drive. I have few Window XP guests installed. One (let's call it "master") is fully functioning system (a base disk), the rest are its linked clones.
Yesterday I wanted to extend a drive size of all off them. I changed the size of "master" system (from 14GB to 50GB) using VboxManage.exe and modifyhd command with --resize option. Everything till that moment went well (VirtualBox indicated a new size correctly). Next I mounted GParted Live CD iso on this "master" system to change the partition size. GParted didn't recognise a new drive properly. It was showing the old capacity of the drive. I read that it happens if there are some snapshots taken (it would be my case – I have several linked clones).
Is there any way to expand the drive size of the system that has linked clones (i.e. snapshots taken)?
Thanks in advance for all your help.
Regards,
gordom

You can't enlarge the hard drive in a VM which uses snapshots. In the case of a linked clone, both original and clone VMs use the original base VDI as a snapshot, creating a difference file to hold their individual current states - so you can foul things up, but you can't enlarge the drive in either the original or the clone VM.

Create a stand alone clone, then enlarge that.

Thank you very much for your prompt answer. Is it then possible to transform existing linked clone to a stand alone version?

Yes, just clone the clone, as I mentioned above. You should select the option to clone the current state only, otherwise you'll get another linked clone.

Thanks for the all your help. Regards