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How can I easily add storage to a VirtualBox machine with XP installed?

Asked 2009-11-06T16:27:08.787
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When I installed Windows XP on a VirtualBox machine, I made the hard drive only 10 GB since and assumed it would expand in size (as do hard drives in VMWare as far as I can remember, isn't this true?).

In any case, I'm trying to install Visual Studio 2010 beta on this Virtual Box XP image and it has run out of disk space.

Googling for an answer, I'm finding complicated tutorials like this which show you how to increase the size of a VirtualBox hard drive "in just a couple hours".

But I can't imagine it would be that hard to either:

  • increase the size of a virtual disk (after all, it is virtual)
  • create a new hard drive of, say, 20 GB and just attach it in the virtual machine as the D: or E: drive

How can I easily add storage space to a VirtualBox machine with XP installed?

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I am glad you were able to get this done in this manner, but you can (and I did) use the GParted tool for my Windows XP host by following the helpful entry by Eric. To re-iterate/expand on his solution (don't be afraid of the # steps, I'm trying to help newbies here, so there are necessarily more detailed instructions!):

  1. change the size of the virtual hard disk via the VBoxManage modifyhd command, which is well-documented here and in the VirtualBox documentation.

  2. download the GParted-live (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/latest/download?source=dlp) or search the internet for GParted-live ISO. The important part is to get the live (.iso) verison, which is in the form of a bootable .ISO (CD) image.

  3. Mount this new .ISO to the CD virtual drive in the host machine's Storage settings

  4. If necessary/desired, change the boot order in the System settings for the host machine, to boot from CD before Hard Disk (alternatively, you can press F12 when it's booting up, and select the device)

  5. start your VM; if you changed the boot order, it will boot to the GParted-live ISO; otherwise press F12 to do this.

  6. do not be afraid or get too confused/wrapped up in the initial options you are presented; I selected all the defaults (booting to GParted default, default key mapping, language (assuming English - sorry for my non-English friends!), display, etc.). Read it, but just press enter at each prompt. With a Windows VM you should be fine with all the defaults, and if you're not, you're not going to break anything, and the instructions are pretty good about what to do if the defaults don't work.

  7. it will boot to a GUI environment and start the GParted utility. Highlight the c: drive (assuming that's the drive you want to increase the size on

answered 2013-06-13T13:43:43.860

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