I did this so many times already, and I never thought that I could document it, or put it somehow into a blog post. And maybe you already know how that works, how you can find the right Windows VMDK to resize it.
It’s not that complicated if you know what to search or look for. And it’s easy as pie when the VM has only one disk, or maybe two. But imagine a SQL server, which has like eight disks or more, depending on its setup or software recommendation? Then it might get tricky to catch the right VMDK at the first shot.
But this bulletproof guide should help you out! Maybe that gets a new category, bulletproof. We’ll see. But let’s get back to the main topic here.
How do I find the right Windows VMDK?
I deliberately write Windows because I only work on Windows machines for that blog post here and not Linux VMs. It might get another blog post for that sometime in the future. But that depends on the Linux distribution or flavor because Linux is not Linux (don’t hate me please). But there are Debians, RPMs, Unixes, and so many other derivates. Not always the same tools available, not the same commands or syntax. You’ll get the point. Let’s focus on Windows VMs for now.
So, you’ve got that huge VM with several disks, and you have to resize one of them. Lucky you if it’s the C: drive because usually, that’s the first VMDK. Usually. But this guide shows you how to find the right VMDK. And always, making the disk bigger is easier than shrinking it. So it’s better to find the right candidate in the first shot, isn’t it?