The Windows 7 guest OS does not recognize the extended hard disk.

[VividDream]

Hello, VirtualBox Forum members.
I wanted to ask for advice, so I decided to write.

The host OS uses Windows 10 RS5, and the guest OS uses Windows 7 32 bit.

The first C drive space I set up was 32GB. I wanted to expand it, so I ran the command prompt with administrator privileges and entered:

'C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage modifyhd "C:\Users\vivid\VirtualBox VMs\Windows 7 32\Windows 7 32.vdi" --resize 80240'

If the command is successful, the extended size is checked in the properties of the virtual machine,
In the disk management console ('diskmgmt.msc)' of the guest OS, I do not see the extended size, so I will contact you.
(I can not see the space to expand the disk.)

I look forward to your reply.
Best Regards,

[socratis]

Take a look at the FAQ "How to resize a Virtual Drive".

BTW, I'm surprised why running the resizing command as-administrator worked. Are you the only user on the computer and a member of the admin group? You should *not* be using anything with elevated privileges in VirutalBox, except the installation...

[mpack]

The modifyhd --resize command works in place, so it doesn't create a clone in the wrong folder, so administrator rights would be irrelevant to it.

In fact, I can't think of any other VBoxManage command that needs admin rights: they all work on host data folders, so as long as you have access rights to the correct user folder you already have all the rights you need.

That said, the command prompt shortcut on my own host always comes up "Administrator: Command Prompt", so I've been doing the same thing for years, just not specifically for VirtualBox. AFAIK it's harmless for the latter.


As for the OPs question, this sounds like the standard FAQ question after resizing the base VDI in a snapshot chain.