Friday, December 30, 2011

Converting to a fixed virtual hard disk–the hard way

posted on Friday, December 30, 2011
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/12/29/converting-to-a-fixed-virtual-hard-disk-the-hard-way.aspx



Yesterday I showed you how to easily convert a dynamically expanding virtual hard disk to a fixed size virtual hard disk.  But, how do you do this if you want to keep your fixed size virtual hard disk as small as possible?  Well, here is the process that I use for my Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines:

 

  1. Login to the virtual machine using an administrative account
  2. Open Server Manager and select the Disk Management node under the Storage node.
  3. Right click on the partition that you want to shrink and select Shrink
  4. Select how much you want to shrink the partition by
    1. In my case I want to shrink a 250GB partition to 70GB:
      image
  6. Once you have shrunk the partition(s) open Windows Server Backup inside the virtual machine (if you have not installed this – you can do so by choosing to Add Features from Server Manager – don’t worry, this does not take up much space and does not require a reboot to install)
  7. In Windows Server Backup select Backup Once…
  8. This will open the Backup Once Wizard.  There is only one choice on the first page.  On the second page choose Full server
  9. Then select to store the backup on a Remote shared folder and provide a file share to use for storing the back
    1. I have a share setup on my parent partition for backing up virtual machines to when I am doing this
  11. Complete the wizard and wait for the backup to complete:
    image
  12. While the backup is going you can actually jump to the next step.  Creating a new fixed virtual hard disk
  13. Open the New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard
  14. Choose to create a new fixed size virtual hard disk that is the right size for your smaller partitions
    1. Here I am making a 70GB virtual hard disk for my WDS server:
      image
  16. Once the backup is complete, and the fixed virtual hard disk is created, shutdown the virtual machine
  17. Open the virtual machine settings and replace the dynamic virtual hard disks with the new fixed size virtual hard disks
  18. Boot the virtual machine using a Windows Server 2008 R2 installation DVD
  19. After choosing your language, choose Repair your computer (instead of clicking on Install now)     
  20. Then select Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier and click Next
  21. Click Cancel on the warning that comes up, and then click Next followed by Advanced…
  22. Select Search for a system image on the network, followed by clicking Yes
  23. When prompted – enter the network path that you used to create the backup and click OK
  24. Select your backup from the table and click Next
  25. Select the disks you want to restore and click Next, Next, Finish and Yes
  26. The virtual machine will reboot automatically once the backup is restored

Once this is all complete, and once you have confirmed that the virtual machine is working properly, you can delete the dynamically expanding disk and the backup.

Cheers,
Ben



from Virtual PC Guy's Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/