virtualbox.org

I've searched and searched and have not been able to come up with a definitive answer. I somehow ended up with a pretty small .HDD file for a particular virtual box machine and I want to increase the capacity. Ideally I would like to convert it to an expanding .VDI file. Can this be done?

HDD files are typical of a Parallels VM. Have you tried to Google for "parallels to virtualbox conversion"? Also, read the manual, section 5.2.

I advise you to do some reading of the user manual. In particular learn about the various available container types, and note that none of them are dynamically expanding (all formats have a fixed capacity, the only difference is when that capacity is allocated).

You'll also find a discussion of "VBoxManage clonehd" in there, or you can use the GUI version under File|Virtual Media Manager|Copy.

Thanks! I did some more reading on this and I was able to accomplish what I needed. I recall trying to follow some instructions a few months ago but couldn't actually make it work. This time I used the graphical interface in VirtualBox to copy the hard drive file. Then I used the Modifyhd VBoxManage command to increase the file. Then I downloaded the Aomei free partition application in my Windows XP install in the virtual machine and expanded to fill the new file size. Was pretty easy over all.

I'm glad you worked it out, well done.