I've done this countless of times with Zero Failures and no impact to the Guest and Host, like mentioned before.
SSH to Host in question Personally I CD to the VMFS directory of the Guest so the command is shorter Vmkfstools -X #G guest.vmdk (where # is the new size, this might take a bit, make sure you have enough free space on your VMFS) Load a Gparted ISO or another Disk tool you are familiar with and modify the drive with the new space Reboot to windows and Voila, your disk is expanded. If you have enough space and your want to be extra careful, you can clone the VM prior to the expansion and if it messes up the you can power on the clone and you're back to square one. -----Original Message----- From: Matt Bullock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:11 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: VMWare ESX -- Extending a VM's C: drive It's been a while, but when I did this I recall needing to first mount the drive to another running windows vm to move the pagefile off. -matt -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of jond Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 6:34 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: VMWare ESX -- Extending a VM's C: drive Has anyone here resided the C: drive on a server running inside VMWare ESX? Any advise or words of wisdom? Any methods better than the others? *Note, this isn't a mission critical server. The ESX host box is mission critical, but the server in question is not. That's the only reason I'm considering this. This is the method I'm considering: * Shutdown the virtual machine you want to resize * Log into the ESX Server console via Putty * Type "vmkfstools -X /vmfs/volumes///" ie. /vmfs/volumes/Storage1/my_vm.vmdk New disk size can be specified in kilo, mega or gigabytes and will be the total size of the new disk. So if you want to increase a virtual disk from 20GB to 24GB you would specify either 24000m or 24g * Shutdown the second helper virtual machine * Edit the settings of the second VM and add the hard disk from the first VM * Power on the second VM and load the Disk Management snap-in and verify that the disk from the first VM has un-allocated space on it * Select Start, Run and enter diskpart.exe * The command 'list volume' will show you all volumes. * Select your volume based on the results of the list volume command, ie. 'select volume 1' o Type the command 'extend' to extend the volume * Check the Disk Management snap-in again and the volume should be extended with a larger capacity * Shutdown the second VM and remove (not delete) the disk from it * Power on your first VM and the new space should be there and ready to use Advise? Thanks, Jon ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ _________________________________________________________ This e-mail, including attachments, contains information that is confidential and may be protected by attorney/client or other privileges. This e-mail, including attachments, constitutes non-public information intended to be conveyed only to the designated recipient(s). If you are not an intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any unauthorized use, dissemination, distribution or reproduction of this e-mail, including attachments, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify me by e-mail reply and delete the original message and any attachments from your system. _________________________________________________________ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
