The differencing disk records changes sector-by-sector to the whole disk image, not changes to any file in the disk. VirtualBox does not know what file system is employed on the disk image and therefore can not access any individual file of/on the disk image; only the guest OS is aware of that information. VirtualBox is an excellent free solution if you need to run Windows on your Mac. However, one common problem is that over time, you run out of disk space. If you receive the “Low Disk Space” warning in Windows, your only option is to either delete files and applications or resize the amount of hard drive space you allow Windows to use on your Mac.
I use on my Mac to have other operating systems at my disposal. One of my appliances contains a copy of Windows 7 with a fixed, 25GB disk. I’ve run out space and was looking for an easy way to increase it. I came across the modifyhd command, which in theory let’s you increase the disk space, but it only works on dynamic disks. I opted for performance (fixed disk) when I set up the appliance, and this minor inconvenience is the price.
There are several tutorials out there, but many of them require third-party applications, either on the Mac or in Windows side. The thing is, even without those utilities, it’s fairly easy to increase your disk space. What we’ll do is create a bigger disk, clone the contents from the small disk to the big disk, and then increase our Windows partition. Create a new VirtualBox disk First, we’re going to create a new disk with the desired size. Select your appliance in VirtualBox and click on Settings. Click on the Storage button.
Select Controller: SATA Controller from the storage tree list. Underneath the storage tree list, click on the add attachment button (disk icon with plus sign). Select Add Hard Disk, followed by the Create new disk button. Select VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and press Continue. Select Fixed size and press Continue. Give it a name, set your desired disk size, and click Create.
Clone small disk to large disk Second, we’ll copy all of the contents from your existing disk to the new disk. Open up Terminal.
Run the following command: /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxManage clonehd /Users/username/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 7 Pro/Windows 7 Pro.vdi /Users/username/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 7 Pro/Windows 7 Pro New.vdi -existing. Breaking the above command down:. Program: /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxManage clonehd. Existing disk: /Users/ username/VirtualBox VMs/ Windows 7 Pro/ Windows 7 Pro.vdi. New disk: /Users/ username/VirtualBox VMs/ Windows 7 Pro/ Windows 7 Pro New.vdi.
Existing disk flag: -existing. Be sure to change the items in red (and anything else you may have customized). The backslash before each space is necessary to escape the space.
You should see a progress indicator that will let you know when it’s complete. Increase your Windows partition Lastly, now that the disk has increased in space, we need to expand our Windows partition to utilize the newly-added space.
Start your Windows appliance and login. Find your Computer, right-click on it, and select Manage. Toward the left, click on Disk Management (under Storage). Find your C: drive to the right, right-click on it, and select Extend Volume. Click Next, then Next one more time, followed by Finish.
If you inspect your hard drive now using Explorer, you’ll find the added space. This entry was posted in, and tagged, on.
Post navigation. ↓. Post author Hi Cory, Did you at some point rename your Windows XP or any of the other directories in that path? I did a bit of research on that (since I’ve never run into this) and it could either be (a) that you were not using absolute paths (which it looks like you were) or (b) that you at some point renamed a directory in that path (e.g. Windows XP) and VirtualBox still thinks that location exists. If you run VBoxManage list hdds, do all your disks live in the path indicated? What you might try is to unregister that UUID within VirtualBox’s registry by running: VBoxManage closemedium disk 403ba968-4361-4d09-a58a-4f434ef115fd And then try cloning it again: VBoxManage clonehd '/users/corylowe/virtualbox VMs/Windows XP/Windows XP.vdi' '/users/corylowe/virtualbox VMs/Windows XP/100 GB.vdi' -existing.