How to Resize Your Parallels Drive, and Get Windows to Recognize It
Sure Parallels includes a handy dandy hard little program called “Parallels Image Tool” that lets you dynamically resize your virtual hard disks image. But, thats all the tool does - resizing hard disk images. For Windows to understand that it got a much needed boost (without deleting all your data), you’ll need to pull out some fancy tricks. The procedure isn’t hard is you follow the instructions carefully.
- Assuming you already resized your hard disk image via the Parallels Image Tool you download GParted (review) from SourceForge.
- Once that ISO is downloaded, Open Parallels.
- Go to the Edit menu and select Virtual Machine…
- In the new Configuration Editor window, in Boot Sequence select CD-ROM, Hard Disk, Floppy
- Then select the CD/DVD-ROM option
- Under the Emulation subdivsion select Use ISO image file
- Then select the … next to when it says Image File
- Navigate to the gparted-livecd-0.3.3-0.iso file (Most likely saved on your desktop) and hit open
- Then press OK in the Configuration Editor window
- Start your Windows Virtual Machine
- You will know you did everything correctly so far when you see the following screen, at the prompt hit RETURN
- Don’t be scared of all the gibberish that scroll by fast on the screen, it is Linux (which powers GParted) doing its thing
- When prompted at the GParted LiveCD/USB Extra Boot Options window, press return on the Skip extra boot options selection
- Again more text will scroll by, you can ignore it
- At the GParted LiveCD Language screen select English and press return
- At the GParted LiveCD Keymap screen select qwerty/us.map, and press return
- At the GParted LiveCD Display Depth screen select 24, and press return
- At the GParted LiveCD XRES screen select 640 x 480 (DO NOT SELECT ANYTHING HIGHER), and press return
- Now GParted will start
- You will now see your virtual hard drive partition visually
- Click on /dev/hda1 then click on the Resize/Move button
- In the new window that pops up click on the arrow on the right side and slide it as far right as it can go
- Then press the Resize/Move button
- Then under the Edit menu select Apply All Operations
- Once GParted is done, it will ask you to restart the system, at this time you can press the red stop button in Parallels and say Yes it is safe to turn the virtual machine off
- Now go back to the Edit menu and select Virtual Machine…
- In the new Configuration Editor window, in Boot Sequence go back to the Hard Disk, CD-ROM, Floppy option
- Then select the CD/DVD-ROM option, again
- Under the Emulation subdivsion select Use CD/DVD-ROM Drive again
- Then press OK in the Configuration Editor window
- Start your Windows Virtual Machine
- Windows should boot to the Check Disk Error Screen, thi sis normal. Windows is rebuilding the virtual hard disks partition table
- The system will restart once the error check is complete, once the system is restarted Windows will recognize your new larger virtual hard drive
55 Comments, Comment or Trackback
Tyler Lynch
Just wondering, what version of Parallels are you using?
Jan 30th, 2007
Dan
3120
Jan 30th, 2007
Barron
This would be possible for any guest OS (not just Windows), n’est-ce pas?
And for that matter, for any primary OS (not just OS X)?
Jan 30th, 2007
Ross
What is that theme you are using with the black buttons? How do you install it, could you do a post on that?
Jan 30th, 2007
Hareron
Couldn’t you just use Partition Magic within Windows to do this?
Jan 31st, 2007
Dan
Ross it is a ShapeShifter theme. And Hareron - GParted is FREE :)
Jan 31st, 2007
TjL
@ Hareron: Yes, but Partition Magic is $70. This is free.
Jan 31st, 2007
Doug
Hareron,
Partition Magic doesn’t work in Parallels. I’ve tried version 7 and 8 and they error when you try to apply the changes to the partition.
Jan 31st, 2007
LlamaNerds
Wow. I actually figured this one out on my own. Nice to see someone else came to the same conclusion! It helps that I test and use a lot of Linux live cds on Windows boxes at work.
Feb 1st, 2007
sfw
This doesn’t have to be this complicated… (from my posting last year at parallels mac forum):
(0) For Mac users, at least, realize this all is a bit lame. While you might expect that you could simply use Parallels ImageTool.app to expand your virtual disk image, Win XP will not recognize this expansion automatically. (The absence of this information in the Parallels User Guide fosters this expectation.) Once the image has been expanded with ImageTool.app, Win XP *must* be told to extend it.
(1) Duplicate your Parallels virtual disk image file using the host operating system. On a Mac use the Finder; the location of the file is visible in the Parallels VM property page for you virtual WinXp machine in the “Hard Disk 1″ resources section. Use Parallels’ ImageTool.app to expand the original as desired.
The duplicate isn’t just for a backup. Without using a live CD to boot the virtual machine (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), you will need to boot into Win XP from a volume that is *not* being extended. Thus:
(2) Using the Parallels VM property editor, add a new hard disk to the virtual machine. This hard disk should use the duplicate disk image created in (1). It will (initially, at least) be known by the resource name “Hard Disk 2″.
(3) Arrange for Parallels to boot off the duplicate. I think this must be done by changing the “Connect to” setting in the “Advanced” tab of the “Hard Disk 2″ in the Parallels property editor to “IDE 0:0″. You will be asked if it is OK to swap; say yes. (Perhaps there is a less hacky way of changing the volume from which the virtual machine boots, but I wasn’t able to find it.) Note that this has the side effect of changing the names of the resources: “Hard Disk 1″ becomes “Hard Disk 2″ and visa versa.
This step is necessary because, it seems, the Win XP’s DISKPART is unable to extend the drive from which the virtual machine system is booted. Unfortunately, DISKPART does not give such an explicit error message but instead a general one, perhaps the same one that people are seeing when they attempt to extend a FAT32 volume. This may be the source of some confusion in this thread.
(4) Now start the virtual machine. Once the system is booted, it may say that new hardware detected suggests rebooting. I’m not sure if it is necessary, but go ahead and reboot.
(5) Once rebooted, from the Start menu use “Run” and type “DISKPART”. In the resulting window type “list volume” (not “list volume*s*”, DISKPART is fussy). Under the specifics described here, the volume to extend should appear as “Volume 2″, letter “E”, I think. This is a bit dicey, though, since the volume you booted from looks in all other ways identical to the volume you want to extend. Then type “select volume 2″, and then “extend”.
(6) Shutdown Win XP and clean up the mess made in (3), (2) and (1). In the Parallels VM property editor, set “Hard Disk 2″ (remember the names swapped in (3)) to “IDE 0:0″. Remove what then becomes known has “Hard Disk 2″. Finally, if desired, delete the duplicate made in (1).
(7) When you restart your VM, it may again say that new hardware detected suggests rebooting. Again, while maybe not necessary, go ahead and reboot. Once rebooted you should see the Win XP now realizes that you disk is larger.
Feb 1st, 2007
Tony D
After you extend it within Parallels, you can just open up the VM and use diskpart.
c:\>diskpart
diskpart>display volume
diskpart>select volume #
diskpart>extend
diskpart>exit
It’s part of the OS, and it takes seconds. Use it with VMware all of the time.
Feb 1st, 2007
sfw
The issue with DISKPART is that it cannot extend the volume that booted the machine. This is a problem that must be worked around in the common usage of Parallels on the Mac.
Feb 2nd, 2007
Michael
If you are using Vista, DISKPART can extend the volume that booted the machine.
Feb 2nd, 2007
Brian
In my WinXP disk management snap-in, the lower pane now identifies my disk at it’s new size, but the upper pane continues to show “capacity” as the old size. Any reason why this is happening? It seems like Windows is getting two different stats off of the same disk.
Feb 2nd, 2007
Daniel M.
Here’s a VMware P2V trick for extending boot volumes with DISKPART — Clone your Windows Install, mount the original VM’s C:\ disk as a D:\ Drive on the clone, then extend it,
Feb 3rd, 2007
maelcum
DISKPART has nothing to do with Vista; it’s part of Windows XP already.
Most people just stumble over it, since Vista’s installation routine uses it extensively.
Feb 5th, 2007
Collin
diskpart will only work if you are using ntfs filesystems.
Feb 11th, 2007
Geoff
So, I tried the procedure above, using Gparted. It gave me an error that the operation to expand the partition failed. So then I tried to use SFW’s method, again an error message. This one said that “diskpart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending.”
Anyone have any ideas?
Feb 18th, 2007
Tad
I followed the instructions above for creating the duplicate disk image, adding it to th elist of drives, booting from the first disk image, running DISKPART and then selecting the second drive partition, then simply issuing “EXTEND” (Geoff - when you ran DiskPart did you SELECT the volume of the 2nd drive, then SELECT the partition, THEN issue the EXTEND command?), and that worked. I then removed the first drive and made sure the 2nd drive was primary boot and all is well. I did have to reboot XP once.
Feb 19th, 2007
pigwiggle
This doesn’t have to be this complicated… (1) Duplicate your Parallels virtual disk image file using the host operating system.
I don’t see how using Gparted is any more complicated than your method. My virtual disk is a dozen+ GB. Cloning it for the sole purpose of using its partition utility is a bit silly. Gparted is small and simple to use. Something I can keep kicking around in my Parallels folder for later use.
Mar 7th, 2007
Glenn
I had trouble with 0.3.4 of gparted-liveCD, in that when I hit return after the initial boot prompt, the screen went blank. I downloaded 0.3.3 of gparted-liveCD, and that worked fine.
My C:\ partition was FAT32, but that didn’t seem to matter. I am now a happier camper.
I am using build 3170 of Parallels Desktop for Mac.
rgds
gdr
Mar 11th, 2007
JTS
I can’t get Parallels to select the gparted file I downloaded - it is grayed out, and when i change the name to “gparted-livecd-0.3.3-0.iso, I can’t get the virtual machine to boot off this rather than my hd image. Help!
JTS
Mar 21st, 2007
W Aronsohn
The process using GPart worked fine until I tried to boot into Windows Vista. Now I get an error message saying: Windows\system32\winload.exe (status 0×0000225) and “The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.” Booting with the installation DVD does not work as it instructs me to do.
I think I’ve fried my Vista installation. Anyone have any ideas?
Mar 24th, 2007
Alan
Thanks. It worked a treat.
Apr 2nd, 2007
nick
Worked well on XP. Thanks.
Apr 8th, 2007
The Trotter
Perfect instructions for how to increase the size of Parallels virtual hard disk and get windows to recognise it.
Spot on. Well don.
Apr 15th, 2007
Jeff
Worked perfectly. Thank you for the information. The only thing I had a problem with was GParted not wanting to boot properly if the RAM was set to over 512MB. I adjusted the size while making resizing and changed it back when I was done. Great walk through!
Apr 17th, 2007
David
You rock. Your instructions are right on the money. I appreciate the screenshots as well. It’s great to see people complain that there are easier ways AFTER you’ve gone to the trouble of documenting the easy and free process.
Thanks.
Apr 27th, 2007
beau janks
Worked perfect on a Windows Server 2003 VM
Apr 28th, 2007
C. Scheidel
Thank you thank you thank you. This tutorial worked perfectly. I was so perplexed for a while and now I can install new software I have been attempting to get on my virtual instance. This post was a lifesaver. Again, many thanks.
May 3rd, 2007
John B>
This worked for me as well on an Intel Macbook Pro. The Gparted program ran a little flaky. For instance, it took about 10 minutes for the initial menu to come up (after hitting enter to signon). The bottom menu also flashed throughout the process. Thank you for the tip.
May 6th, 2007
Marc Hollander
If you are having problems with this working on Parallels Build 3188 and a dual intel MacBook Pro, what worked for *me* was downloading gparted-livecd-0.3.4-6.iso and then using autoconfig option (not the Macbook option, which I know is counterintuitive)
May 14th, 2007
Eric
Worked for me. This is great, thanks!
May 18th, 2007
Reed
I’m probably retarded, but I’ll ask anyway. I installed GParted, but can’t get it to boot. Windows starts up fine through parallels, but I’m unable to get to the configuration editor window.
May 23rd, 2007
Paul
Same problem as TAD. Yes, XP sees expanded volume in Diskpart BUT does not register when look for actual disk size in Windows - just reports original size.
Using MacBook, GParted 0.3.4-7 version. Flukey on shutdown -just hangs. Had to force quit Parallels
May have to try to reduce size and use the clone as suggested above -
Oh well
May 27th, 2007
Paul
Correction - Same problem as Brian
May 27th, 2007
Paul
Problem with XP not recognizing resized partition - FIXED. For some reason on my boot to XP after running GPART the “System check for consitency” did not occur. I went back into GPART - shrank the previously expanded partition just a bit. This time XP noticed that things had changed and did the proper disk checking and documenting.
So far so good!
PAUL
May 28th, 2007
CHRIS
Bravo! An excellent method with clear instructions for solving a nagging problem. Gparted returned an error on the first try, but suggested running chkdsk and rebooting in Windows VM. Did this and worked great on the second try!
Jun 6th, 2007
Nathan
Seems to have worked on my MBP. Almost forced Gparted to quit because it looked like it hung on startup, but after about 5 minutes things started flowing again. Thanks!
Jun 19th, 2007
Alex Mosdog
Thanks for the diskpart hint, whoever you are,
parallels 3214, Windows XS SP2, Macbook Pro.
Diskpart couldn’t run on the system boot drive,
so had to create a clone and boot from it,
then patched (extended) the original file.
This all inspired me to have a second virtual
drive as a PGP disk for sensitive data, because
it’s a breeze how easy it is manipulated within Parallels.
Goodbye.
Jun 24th, 2007
William
Splendid guide!!! Work like a charm. I m using Parallels 3214. Went into some hiccup in my 1st attempt. Luckily one of the comment here mention about the ram limit to set. Yup. 512 and not more. Else the GPart cannot complete the loading and will hang.
Me just bump up by 1GB. Since this is so easy to do, I will expand it incrementally as needs arises :-)
Jul 25th, 2007
Brooks Helmick
Just did this with Parallels 3.0 Build 4560. Still works like a charm!
Aug 9th, 2007
Brooks Helmick
Further re above. Using WinXP SP2 on a brand new iMac - 320G drive
Aug 9th, 2007
Rod
On a MacMini it didn´t work with gparted 3.3, but using the latest iso worked like a charm!
Tks a lot!
Aug 10th, 2007
nbraga
I have tried using the process using diskpart - I received a message saying it completed, but advise I had to run “extend filesystem” on diskpart to make the system (XP SP2) to recognise the new partition size. I tried that, but it returned an error.
Then started XP in the Parallels VM, and although the partition was resized, XP would recognise the old size only (including the free space did not consider the extra storage added).
Restored the VM HDD from a backup and tried the process using Gparted - it worked fine, XP is now running in a partition with the new size. I am running XP SP2 on my Parallels VM, I have not had a chance to try any of the methods on Vista VM.
Thank you for both hints.
Sep 14th, 2007
Jamie
OK, I’ve got a riddle. I used the parallels tool prior to finding this post, thus I have an expansion of 12GB that has been ‘not really in use’ for a month or so. I keep getting the messages on Windows that my C drive is full (when I finalized the first process I had to allocate the new space as a new drive). So, I go looking for a solution and find this string. When I went in to expand the drive it showed both drives, the new expansion with 3GB of ‘who knows what’ on it. When I used the above string I got to the point to drag the space allocation for the drive and it would not let me merge the two drives. I trouble shot it a bit, but then I just figured I’d try and take the easy way out so I went and added 5GB of space to the virtual drive using the Parallels tool again. When I went back through the process to get the virtual machine to recognize the drive I only had the option to expand the 12GB portion (the original problem drive w/ 3GB on it), it still wouldn’t let me expand the original C drive.
So…here I am, still incapable of expanding the original drive, the one causing the problem in the Windows virtual machine…hoping someone can bail me out.
Anyone…Anyone…Beuler…
Oct 26th, 2007
Ron Margolis
Hooray! Your g-parted technique worked perfectly. Wish they put it in the parallels manual. Thank you so very much for the excellent step by step tutorial and hopefully putting an end to the “You are low on disk space” dialogue box popping up every fifteen minutes.
Feb 2nd, 2008
Neal
I have OS 10.4.11 and Parallels 3.0 build 3214. GParted 3.4.11 did not run as described. After getting a screen with 25 or so options to choose from, not in the instructions, I chose “…auto-config…” and hit Return. I got a black screen with 16 or so lines like, “agp_generic_free_gatt_table+…, driver_attach…, bus_add_driver…, kernel_init…, ret_from_fork,kernel_thread_helper…”, a few lines of hex code, a “change_page_attr…” line and then the following dire sounding message, “Kernel panic - not syncing: attempted to kill init!…” and then “clocksource tsc unstable…” and no further screens. Now what?
Feb 6th, 2008
Paul
This worked great. When I initially set up XP I set the hdd space to like 8gb, thinking Id never need more than that. Well lo and behold I had run out of room on my XP install and didnt know what to do. This tutorial worked like a charm. Kudos.
Feb 14th, 2008
Mike
Thanks for the instructions. Unfortunately, I had a similar experience to Brian and Paul. The checkdisk didn’t run after reboot, and windows didn’t recognize the additional disk space. However, diskmgmt showed the disk as having the full space but not the volume. Diskpart showed the full disk space as well. I ran gpart again and I was getting errors about an unclean NTFS journal.. Found some docs, exited to terminal window from within GPART and ran ntfsfix /dev/hda1 .. everything ran successfully, rebooted and the increased disk was recognized by windows with no issues..
Mar 1st, 2008
m!ke
This worked great once I used the latest ISO for gparted - the version you had pointed to for some reason hung on startup.
Amazing that parallels only documents half the steps needed for this obvious and important operation!
m!ke
Mar 9th, 2008
Raul
GParted gave me a lot of error messages; just couldn’t get it to partition. Anyways the copying HDD and then using DISKPART in windows worked like a charm and the whole procedure required less than 5 minutes.
Thanks for the detailed steps, SFW!
Mar 25th, 2008
Wayne
Thanks so much for the great documentation! This helped me so much. I am running XP Pro in Parallels 3214 on a Mac Book Pro with Tiger. Thanks again!
Apr 21st, 2008
Kevin
This is probably trivial, but I had the same problem as Brian, Paul, and Mike. This is that the Windows volume shows the full amount in the graph, but only gives the old capacity listed above. If I knew more about Linux I would have been able to solve it right away. The problem was when I tried to check the drive using the check button in Gparted or the terminal command ntfsfix /dev/hda1 they both didn’t work. What I had to do was type mount into the terminal and then run the ntfsfix /dev/hda1 command. After that then windows final ran its disk check and detected the new drive space. This thread has been very helpful, thanks all.
Kevin
Apr 23rd, 2008
Benjamin
Fabulous instructions and worked perfectly. Thanks to Dan!
Jun 2nd, 2008
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