VBOX: Extending VHD

VirtualBox provides a built-in command-line tool called VBoxManage , which allows you to resize VHD (or VDI/VMDK) virtual disk images.

Resizing a VHD using VBoxManage

Syntax:

VBoxManage modifymedium "path/to/your.vhd" --resize [SizeInMB]

Example:

If you want to resize a .vhd file to 50 GB :

VBoxManage modifymedium "C:\VMs\MyVM\disk1.vhd" --resize 51200

After resizing, you must log into the guest OS and use tools like:

• Windows Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc)

• or GParted (for Linux)

Limitations:

• You can only resize dynamically allocated disks in some versions of VirtualBox.

• Fixed-size disks may not be resizable via modifymedium. In that case, you may need to:

  1. Clone the disk to a new larger dynamic disk.

  2. Replace the old disk with the new one.

Example:

VBoxManage clonehd "old.vhd" "new.vdi" --format vdi
VBoxManage modifymedium "new.vdi" --resize 61440

After you have extended the VHD, you need to configure in the OS.

**

For Windows XP:**

1. Start the VM.

2. Inside the VM:

   • Click Start \> Run , type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.

   • In Disk Management, locate the disk — it should show unallocated space at the end.

   • Windows XP does not allow extending logical disk. You need to allocate the new space as new disk and assign a drive letter.