How to Enlarge a Virtual Machine’s Disk in VirtualBox or …

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To enlarge a virtual machine’s disk in VirtualBox, follow these steps:

  1. Backup your Virtual Machine: Before making any changes to your virtual machine, it’s essential to back it up to avoid data loss in case anything goes wrong during the resizing process.
  2. Open VirtualBox: Launch the VirtualBox application.
  3. Locate the Virtual Machine: In the VirtualBox Manager, select the virtual machine that you want to resize from the list on the left side.
  4. Shutdown the Virtual Machine: Ensure that the virtual machine is completely shut down before proceeding with the disk enlargement.
  5. Open Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (macOS/Linux): To perform the resizing, you’ll need to use the command-line utility that comes with VirtualBox. This utility is called VBoxManage, and it allows you to manage virtual machines.
  6. Navigate to VirtualBox Installation Directory (Optional): If the VBoxManage command is not recognized, you might need to navigate to the VirtualBox installation directory using the cd command. For example, on Windows, the default installation path is usually “C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox”.
  7. Resize the Virtual Disk: Run the following command to resize the virtual disk. Replace “VM_NAME” with the name of your virtual machine, and specify the new size in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB):

    For Windows:

    VBoxManage modifyhd "C:\Users\YourUserName\VirtualBox VMs\VM_NAME\YourVMFileName.vdi" --resize SIZE_IN_MB

    For macOS/Linux:

    VBoxManage modifyhd "/path/to/VirtualBox VMs/VM_NAME/YourVMFileName.vdi" --resize SIZE_IN_MB

    Note: The SIZE_IN_MB should be the new desired size of the virtual disk.

  8. Verify the Disk Resize: You can check if the disk has been resized by using the following command:
    VBoxManage showhdinfo "C:\Users\YourUserName\VirtualBox VMs\VM_NAME\YourVMFileName.vdi"
  9. Start the Virtual Machine: Once the disk has been resized, start your virtual machine as you normally would.
  10. Extend the Partition (if required): After starting the virtual machine, you may need to extend the partition inside the virtual machine’s operating system to utilize the newly allocated disk space fully.

The steps for resizing a virtual machine’s disk might vary slightly depending on the version of VirtualBox you are using, but the overall process remains quite similar. Always remember to back up your data and ensure the virtual machine is shut down before performing any disk-related operations.