How extend VirtualBox Windows volume
I had someone ask me how to make a Windows volume larger on VirtualBox. This process is pretty easy. I’m using
MacBook Air
VirtualBox 5.2.10
Windows 7
These are the steps which I’ve done to expand a VirtualBox volume and Windows.
Find VirtualBox Volume Path
First thing we’re going to do is get the location of your VB volume.
Open VirtualBox Manager
Right Click VM Name > Settings > Storage tab
Now click the volume name under Controller: SATA
On right side of the page your see Location this is where your vdi file is located on disk, we need that for the next step
/Users/admin/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 7 20141108/Windows 7 20141108.vdi
We’re going to use that path for the next step.
Increase VirtualBox Volume Size
Now using the path you just copied.
Open Terminal window, you can click Applications or my short cut is doing using Spotlight Search, hit Command-Space and type terminal and return. Opens quickly.
Now run the following command. Note if you’re like me and have spaces in the folders and files, then you need to put quotes around the path we just copied. Unix assumes after a space is another command so you’ll get some weird errors. The Windows volume was 30GB and I want to crease to 40GB.
$ VBoxManage modifyhd "/Users/admin/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 7 20141108/Windows 7 20141108.vdi" --resize 40000 0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%
Now you’re done with the first step which is expand the volume, now we need to tell Windows there is more space.
Extending Window Volume
Next launch your Window VM and we’re going to expand the volume.
Click Run > Search for Disk Management > Select “Create and Format Disk Partitions”
Next right click on the C: drive and select Extend Volume…
Go through the steps to add the additional space you added earlier to the VB volume
Once that is done, Windows will now have more storage available.