I need to grow the download disk on hotsoup-p2p, a VMWare Workstation virtual disk that stores my P2P downloads while they’re in progress. It’s only 10GB; I need at least 20GB, probably more.

From this forum posting, I see there’s a utility installed in the VMWare Workstation directory, vmware-vdiskmanager.exe. Running it I get:

Usage: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe OPTIONS diskName | drive-letter:
Offline disk manipulation utility
 Options:
    -c                   : create disk; need to specify other create options
    -d                   : defragment the specified virtual disk
    -k                   : shrink the specified virtual disk
    -n <source-disk>     : rename the specified virtual disk; need to
                           specify destination disk-name
    -p                   : prepare the mounted virtual disk specified by
                           the drive-letter for shrinking
    -q                   : do not log messages
    -r <source-disk>     : convert the specified disk; need to specify
                           destination disk-type
    -x <new-capacity>    : expand the disk to the specified capacity

    Additional options for create and convert:
       -a <adapter>      : adapter type (ide, buslogic or lsilogic)
       -s <size>         : capacity of the virtual disk
       -t <disk-type>    : disk type id

    Disk types:
       0                 : single growable virtual disk
       1                 : growable virtual disk split in 2Gb files
       2                 : preallocated virtual disk
       3                 : preallocated virtual disk split in 2Gb files

    The capacity can be specified in sectors, Kb, Mb or Gb.
    The acceptable ranges:
                          ide adapter : [100.0Mb, 950.0Gb]
                          scsi adapter: [100.0Mb, 950.0Gb]
       ex 1: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -c -s 850Mb -a ide -t 0 myIdeDisk.vmdk
       ex 2: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -d myDisk.vmdk
       ex 3: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -r sourceDisk.vmdk -t 0 destinationDisk.vm

dk ex 4: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -x 36Gb myDisk.vmdk ex 5: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -n sourceName.vmdk destinationName.vmdk ex 6: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -k myDisk.vmdk ex 7: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -p m: (A virtual disk first needs to be mounted at m: using the VMware Diskmount Utility.)

So I turned off the virtual machine, and did:

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 25GB "C:\VMs\hotsoup - Shareaza\Downloads.vmdk"

It took forever, but then it was done.

Trouble is, the Windows partition is still only 10GB. I need to expand it.

Using Disk Management, I converted the disk to ‘Dynamic’ from ‘Basic’. Once that’s done, I right-click the disk and chose ‘Expand’. I expanded by 15GB, to use the full capacity of the disk. Too easy.