Hi,

We recently deployed two physical servers using VMM 2012 R2's bare metal deployment.

We used a Physical Computer Profile and a sysprep'd image which was stored in VMM's Library.

Once the servers booted up we realized that VMM had created a VHDX file on the server's physical HDD (E:, 500GB size).

This VHDX was mounted as C: and has a total capacity of 40GB!

My question is, how can I expand this VHDX's capacity whilst the server is running?
As this is a physical server I can't really shut it down and expand the drive without physically removing the drive from the server and attaching it to another computer.

When I try to expand the VHDX using powershell's "Resize-VHD" I get the below error:

Command Used: resize-vhd -Path E:\Win2012R2_disk_1.vhdx -SizeBytes 100GB

resize-vhd : Failed to resize the virtual disk.
The system failed to resize 'E:\Win2012R2_disk_1.vhdx': The process cannot access the file because it is being used by
another process. (0x80070020).

Is there any other way I can achieve this?

Thank you

Panicos

 

You won't be able to expand that VHDX file as is, you'll need to take the VHDX offline to expand it but you won't be able to do that easily.

The size of the VHDX comes from the original sysprep'd image. You'll need to change that. Once you've done that you can then redeploy the host using VMM.

Why do you need to change it? Are the hosts clustered? If so then VMs will be a CSV so there's no need to worry. Whilst 40GB isn't ideal it shouldn't cause an issue.

If they're not clustered is there a RAID controller on the server? If so you might want to change the LUN layout to have say 150GB LUN and a 350GB LUN for VMs.

• Marked as answer by Panayiotis Theodorou Tuesday, May 06, 2014 1:24 PM

You won't be able to expand that VHDX file as is, you'll need to take the VHDX offline to expand it but you won't be able to do that easily.

The size of the VHDX comes from the original sysprep'd image. You'll need to change that. Once you've done that you can then redeploy the host using VMM.

Why do you need to change it? Are the hosts clustered? If so then VMs will be a CSV so there's no need to worry. Whilst 40GB isn't ideal it shouldn't cause an issue.

If they're not clustered is there a RAID controller on the server? If so you might want to change the LUN layout to have say 150GB LUN and a 350GB LUN for VMs.

• Marked as answer by Panayiotis Theodorou Tuesday, May 06, 2014 1:24 PM

You won't be able to expand that VHDX file as is, you'll need to take the VHDX offline to expand it but you won't be able to do that easily.

The size of the VHDX comes from the original sysprep'd image. You'll need to change that. Once you've done that you can then redeploy the host using VMM.

Why do you need to change it? Are the hosts clustered? If so then VMs will be a CSV so there's no need to worry. Whilst 40GB isn't ideal it shouldn't cause an issue.

If they're not clustered is there a RAID controller on the server? If so you might want to change the LUN layout to have say 150GB LUN and a 350GB LUN for VMs.

• Marked as answer by Panayiotis Theodorou Tuesday, May 06, 2014 1:24 PM

You won't be able to expand that VHDX file as is, you'll need to take the VHDX offline to expand it but you won't be able to do that easily.

The size of the VHDX comes from the original sysprep'd image. You'll need to change that. Once you've done that you can then redeploy the host using VMM.

Why do you need to change it? Are the hosts clustered? If so then VMs will be a CSV so there's no need to worry. Whilst 40GB isn't ideal it shouldn't cause an issue.

If they're not clustered is there a RAID controller on the server? If so you might want to change the LUN layout to have say 150GB LUN and a 350GB LUN for VMs.

• Marked as answer by Panayiotis Theodorou Tuesday, May 06, 2014 1:24 PM

Hi guys,

I have a way to do this as we came across the same issue here in OZ. If anyone is interested I can post the script I wrote. Let me know, as I have been working on bare metal deployments and had to script a way to expand our deployed OS "VHDX" anyhow let me know if you are keen and I will add the script, I may need to review it to ensure it doesn't have any gov info so give me a little time for that but happy to help and would love if people are keen to use it, etc.

thanks

Trev

Hi Trevor,

I would be interested in seeing the script that you wrote to expand the OS "VHDX".  Please feel free to post the script.

Thanks,

A.J.

When SCVMM performs a bare metal deployment it uses the 'Native Boot' feature of the OS introduced with Windows 2008 Windows 7 ( https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg318048%28v=ws.10%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396 )

By default it gives you an OS partition (the VHD itself) and you use the remainder of the physical disk for VM storage or remote storage.

The intent is not to expand the OS VHD and store VMs within that.

This can actually create the problem of filling up the OS volume and causing the server to get into a bad state.