Resizing a VMWare Disk

The first thing to realize is that with VMWare player, you CAN NOT resize a VM Disk. You must have at least VMWare Server. No worries though, VMWare Server is free for the downloading. We are starting with a 5GB VMware Drive that is full:

1. Shut Down your Virtual Machine.The VMWare Drive must be shutdown before resizing
2. Resize the VMWare Disk. The following pre will resize the disk to 20GB. Use whatever numbers make sense for you here.

   	lance@rcis1:~$ vmware-vdiskmanager -x 20Gb Win2K.vmdk
   Using log file /tmp/vmware-lance/vdiskmanager.log
     Grow: 100% done.
   The old geometry C/H/S of the disk is: 10402/16/63
   The new geometry C/H/S of the disk is: 16383/16/63
   Disk expansion completed successfully.
   
   WARNING: If the virtual disk is partitioned, you must use a third-party
            utility in the virtual machine to expand the size of the
            partitions. For more information, see:
            http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1647
   

   If you reboot into your operating system, you will see the changed disk.
   This hasn't really solved our problem though. We still have a C: drive that is full and a bunch of unallocated space.
3. Reboot the Virtual Machine with a recent Linux Live Distribution. I recommend Ubuntu. Update your .vmx file to either point to your cdrom drive or an iso image:

   			ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"
   			ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
   		

   -or-

   			ide1:0.fileName = "livecd.iso"
   			ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
   			ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
   		

   You may also have to go into the Virtual Bios (F2) and set the cdrom as the primary boot device
4. Resize your disk partition. Using gparted (System . . Administration . . Partition Editor), select the primary hard drive (sda) and expand the partition (Probably sda1) to the full size of the drive.
5. Reboot into your guest operating system. You will either need to update the vmx file or change the bios to keep the system from booting into the LiveCD. If you are using a Windows Guest, it will need to CHKDSK the drive.
6. Enjoy your newly resized VMWare Disk.