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Is there an easy way to increase virtual hard disk space on VirtualBox?

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3 Answers

up vote 24 down vote accepted

There is not an easy way to do this.

There is a complicated one, though:

http://www.my-guides.net/en/content/view/122/26/

Has a good screenshot-by-screenshot guide. Essentially you're copying your install onto a new virtual-disk file.

Update: As of VirtualBox 4 they added support for expansion. 

VBoxManage modifyhd filename.vdi --resize 46080

That will resize a virtual disk image to 45GB.

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Regarding the VirtualBox 4 version: after resizing the disk, you have to resize the partition as well which cannot be done when booted from so one has to boot into some sort of gparted livecd as well. – fikovnik Mar 14 '11 at 2:14
@fikovnik- Yes, the partition needs to be resized too. However, on Windows it can be done on the booted disk itself using the diskpart utility tool via the command-line or via the Disk Management GUI without booting from a separate disk. – Ray Vega Jun 8 '11 at 19:35
I don't have a vdi file what is it? I have .vmdk files – chobo2 Aug 2 '12 at 21:45
up vote 2 down vote

The Trivial Proof blog has a nice tutorial of the process for VirtualBox versions before and after 4.0. It includes the steps for adjusting the partition on the expanded disk.

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That blog site no longer exists. – Barry Brown Aug 15 '11 at 17:52
The link was just broken, @Barry. Fixed now. – Don Kirkby Aug 17 '11 at 3:31
up vote 0 down vote

this worked perfectly (from windows 7 and using vbox 4.x

do the following

  1. open cmd as and administrator
  2. go to the folder where the VBOX is installed so you can use the exe VBoxManage
  3. from there run the following VBoxManage modifyhd --resize eg: VBoxManage modifyhd C:\V-MACHINES\SERVER2008\WIN-2008.VDI --resize 26000
  4. YOU WILL see a message from 0 to 100% and done
  5. start you machine and go to my computer, right click and manage, go to storage, right click on the disk you expand, click on extend volume and resize the disk as you wish
  6. if necessary restart the vmachine

Cheers. Mauricio Luca, GT.

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