Sadglobe

In this small howto I’ll try and explain how I enlarged my Windows XP virtual hard disk under Parallels. Most of this information I got from the Parallels forum so all credits go to the original posters.

In case you haven’t heard of Parallels before; it allows you to run Windows (or another OS like Linux) side-by side with MacOS X on your Mac. There’s no need to reboot like BootCamp. Check out the Parallels website for more information.

One thing you might run into (like I did) is that the virtual hard disk you created becomes to small, which is why I wrote this little howto. I’ll show you how I resized my virtual hard disk from 64GB to 80GB and how I used a free open source tool called GParted to resize the actual Windows XP partition contained on the virtual hard disk.

Warning: Please backup your virtual machine before continuing!

Resizing your virtual hard disk with Parallels Image Tools

We’ll begin by resizing the virtual hard disk image file on which the Windows XP partition resides. Luckily, Parallels comes with a handy tool called Parallels Image Tools which allows you to do just that.

Before we begin, make sure your Windows XP virtual machine isn’t running. Then go to your Parallels folder under Applications and open Parallels Image Tools. The following window will appear.

Click on Continue. In the next screen we’ll select the virtual hard disk image file which contains the Windows XP installation. Usually this file resides in the following folder:

/Users/YourAccountName/Documents/Parallels/YourVMName/

Replace YourAccountName and YourVMName with your system account name and the name of your Parallels virtual machine. The image file is the file in this folder which has a .hdd file extension.

Next we need to tell Parallels Image Tools what action we like to perform on the selected disk image. Choose the Increase the disk capacity option.

In the next window we specify the new size of the virtual hard disk. In this case I choose 80GB.

That’s all we need to do to resize the virtual hard disk. Press Start. Hopefully you aren’t in a hurry because this will take a while.

Once you’re done resizing the virtual hard disk, we still need to enlarge the Windows XP partition (which resides on the virtual hard disk) because unfortunately, it won’t use the newly added space automatically. For this we’ll use a free open source tool called GParted.

Using GParted to resize the Windows XP partition

GParted (short for Gnome Partition Editor) is a handy tool which allows you to perform various filesystem related actions on lots of filesystem types. Because GParted requires Linux, we can’t use it just by downloading and installing the application. Luckily, there’s a bootable Live CD available for download which we’ll use. You can download the Live CD from :

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

The Live CD is available as an iso file which you can burn with MacOS X’s Disk Utility, but this is not necessary since Parallels allows you to mount an iso file directly as a CD and boot from it on your virtual machine. You just need to tell your Windows XP virtual machine to boot from CD and specify the iso file from which it should boot. To do this, go to your virtual machine configuration under Parallels.

First select the Options resource in the left pane and click on the Booting tab. Choose the CD-ROM, Hard Disk, Floppy option under Boot Sequence.

Then select the CD-ROM resource and check the Use image file radio button under Emulation. Under Image File, pick the GParted iso file you downloaded.

Save the settings and boot up your Windows XP virtual machine. If all goes well, your virtual machine should boot up the GParted Live CD. You’ll get something like the screen below. Just pick the first option and press enter.

Next, it might ask you some questions about what keymap and language settings you like to use. If you’re unsure, just press enter. Once it’s loaded, press the Resize/Move button.

Next we’ll tell GParted that the Windows XP partition should be resized so it will use the full space of the virtual hard disk file. We do this by resizing the rectangle until the amount in the New Size textbox equals the amount under Maximum Size (under the rectangle).

Click the Resize/Move button followed by the Apply button and GParted will resize your Windows XP partition. It’s a fairly quick operation which will take a few seconds.

Once GParted is done, you can shutdown your virtual machine. Before booting into Windows XP, don’t forget to undo the changes you made under the Parallels configuration for your Virtual Machine.

Almost done

Now with your virtual hard disk image and the Windows XP partition on it resized, you’re almost done. On the first boot, Windows will detect a disk change and will check the disk for errors. Just let Windows do it’s stuff. That’s it.

If you want to check if your disk size is indeed increased, click the Start button, select Run and enter the following command :

diskmgmt.msc

This will start up Windows Disk Management tool which will show you your disk partitions and sizes.

Hopefully this howto was useful for you. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.