Expanding the Boot Volume of a Windows Server 2008 Virtual Machine

[Badrunath]

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I have a server running Windows Server 2008 on it. The drive on which it was installed is almost full. So I would like to increase/expand its size now. However, according to the discussions with some of my friends, I came to know that it involves downtime which I don't want. Is there any other option to this, if possible then virtual machine or something similar?

[HiSpeed]

1: Turn off the system which is having the boot volume.
2: Make sure you have a backup copy of your virtual disk, optional.
3: Go into the service console and increase the size of the .dsk or .vmdk virtual disk file.

[root@esx-mydisk local]# ls -lah mydisk.vmdk
-rw-------    1 root     root         current_size_of_the_disk mydisk.vmdk

Extend the virtual disk with vmkfstools. The -X switch denotes the size of the file that you want the disk file to be.

[root@esx-mydisk local]# vmkfstools -X new_size_of_the_disk mydisk.vmdk

View the new size of mydisk.vmdk

[root@esx-mydisk local]# ls -lah mydisk.vmdk
-rw-------    1 root     root          new_size_of_the_disk mydisk.vmdk

4: Take a new Virtual Machine with Windows Server 2008 already installed in it. Turn it off and add the disk from the first system to it through the mui. Turn on the second Virtual Machine and make sure the imported disk has unallocated space on it.

Now go to Start - Run and type "diskpart.exe" (also refer Learn how to master the DISKPART command) to enter the command line utility. It will display all the available volumes. Select your volume which you want to extend and then use "extend" command. Make sure you see the changes under the Disk Management snap in.

5: Turn off the second Virtual Machine and take the disk out of the second Virtual Machine. Turn on the first Virtual Machine and see if you can notice the changes in your drive volume.

[Connect_Me]

Shut down the Virtual Machine. To expand the VMDK, log into the server via ssh (or Putty), find the .vmdk file that you want to expand and use vmkfstools to expand it using "vmkfstools -X new_size vmname.vmdk" command. Now you need to resize the boot partition. For this you can use third party tool such as GPart. Download and save it in a cd, and then boot from it. Finally use this tool to expand the existing partition. Once done, remove the CD and reboot the machine.

[BiGMaCHiNe]

Go to Start and look for Server Manager. Expand Storage and click on Disk Management. Now right click on Disk Management in the left pane and click Refresh. Now you should find the newly added unallocated space on the disk. Now right click on the c: volume on the right pane, and choose Extend Volume. Click Next. The wizard will select all available space in the Selected column which you can change if you want. Once done click Next. Click Finish.

[CTS]

So followed the instructions for using the GUI method and it seems to have worked just fine but I now have a disparity between the available space shown on the Disk Management console and the Explorer window:

Disk Management console reads "Disk 0, Basic, 100.0GB, Online, C:. NFTS, Healthy, System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition"
Cool.

When I open (and refresh) "My Computer" and then right-click, properties on C: it tells me that I've got 49.9GB available.

Tried rebooting the VM as well as rebooting the hypervisor: same results.

Help!