Increase Hard Disk Space for a Windows Virtual Machine

Hard Disk Space for a Windows Virtual Machine

Overview

This guide will provide you with steps to add additional hard drive space to a Windows virtual machine.

This process is typically used for virtual environments such as VMware or Hyper-V.

Instructions

Please follow the steps below and use the reference article in the next section if any issues arise.

  1. Log into the vCenter
  2. Select the Virtual Machine you would like to modify
    1. Click “Edit Settings”
  3. Select the Hard Drive that you would like to add additional storage to

If there are multiple hard drives on this virtual machine, be sure to select the correct one!

  1. In this example, we increasing the backup server’s “Hard Disk 2” drive by 20 GB from 280 GB to 300GB.
  2. Increase the Provisioned Size from 280 to 300 and click OK

This only adds the additional storage in vCenter.

Now, we must go into the Windows machine and tell it about the newly provisioned space.

  • Log into the windows machine
  • Navigate to the Start Menu and search for “mmc”
  • Open MMC (Microsoft Management Console)
    • File > Add or Remove Snap-In
    • Select “Disk Management” and click “Add” > to move it over to the selected snap-ins
      • If prompted, select “This computer” then Finish
    • Click OK
  1. We can see that Disk1 still says that it has 280GB instead of 300GB
  2. In the top menu bar, select Action > Rescan Disks
  3. Disk1 will now show the normal 280GB as well as 20GB of unallocated space
  1. Right Click Disk 1 > Extend Volume > Next through the screens to add ALL of the unallocated space
  2. Open the File Explorer and verify that the drive space has been successfully increased

You have now successfully added additional hard drive space to a windows virtual machine!

Reference

The below VMware website provides additional instructions for utilizing this process.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1004047

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