On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 7:19 PM, Mark LaPierre marklapier@gmail.com wrote:

Hey all,

I resized a partition inside a KVM RAW file system disk image. When I start the Win7 virtual machine it does not report the new partition size. It shows the file system as 15GB instead of the 50GB size of the partition that it lives on. I gather from hours so reading the manual that I need to increase the NTFS file system size to fill the new larger partition where it lives.

While yes, you do need to increase the NTFS file system, I'd expect what you'll find is the partition still needs to be enlarged first.

The ntfresize command does not seem to be compatible with disk image files. Do I have to mount the disk image file with a loopback first?

I tried doing it inside the Win7 VM using the disk management tools but that didn't work either.

In the past I've booted up with a GNU/Linux live CD that has GParted and enlarged the partition that Windows occupies. Expect Windows to do a check disk (I think) following the resize.

Or [instead of using GParted] I'd expect you could boot to a live environment and use fdisk to delete the Windows partition (after marking down the start of the existing partition). Then create an NTFS partition in the same place that is of the larger desired size. From there you might be able to boot your Windows OS and have it resize ... but I don't know for certain (though worth a test if you have a backup and don't mind testing it!).

If you were feeling adventurous, you could also loopback mount it and choose my second suggestion with fdisk. But if you had gparted or ntfs-3g you could also use utilities to manipulate the disk and file system. Certainly not as easy as booting a live CD in the VM (let alone GParted GUI).

Any suggestions welcome.

Please back up your VM's disk image/backing before trying any of this. ;-)

HTH