Mark Rae [MVP] wrote:

> "d d" <go_on_try_and_sp@newsgroup_me.com> wrote in message
> news:uXL7aoAeKHA.2184@newsgroup
>

>> I guess I'm forced to convert it to a fixed size and hope that when
>> doing that, I get to change the size.

>
> As Bob has explained, you won't be able to do that.
>
> I tend to favour Bob's first suggestion in cases like this.
>
> I've never had a problem with VMToolkit, and I use Partition Magic to
> increase the partition size.
>
> It can be a bit scary at first to boot the VM from a captured floppy
> disk and then to non-destructively increase the active partition on the
> VHD, but it really does work!
>
> I recently did something similar for a client who wanted to upgrade the
> fixed disk in his PC to a much larger one. Took about 15 minutes to
> create an image of the old HD with Acronis, then about two minutes to
> swap the physical drives over, and then about 10 minutes to restore the
> image onto the new HD, and then about another two minutes to expand the
> restored image's partition to fill the whole of the new drive.
>
> "Wow! It must have taken you hours to reinstall Windows and all my
> applications, and you've even kept my desktop exactly as it was..."
>
> At moments like that, all you can do is smile sweetly and raise the
> invoice... ;-)

There's a easier (but not necessarily quicker) way of doing it using
Acronis's clone-disk feature. When I bought my most recent laptop I
wanted twin 500GB drives in it, but the laptop manufacturer wanted way
too much for it. So I went with the cheapest (single) drive they
offered. When it arrived, I plugged one of the 500GB drives I'd bought,
dropped it into a USB2 case and did a clone disk. It's in the operations
menu. It will happily clone to a larger disk and will adjust partitions
as it does so. I'm so impressed with the clone disk feature that I have
backup 500GB drives and use it to maintain a plug-and-go backup. If this
primary drive dies, I'll be back up and running in 2 minutes :-)