Expanding Partition on VMWare

Found this question posted on stackoverflow, but I think using GParted is the easiest and flexible.

I have Windows 7 as the host, and CentOS 6.5 as the guest, but I think this method will work on most linux guests where GParted works.

  1. Download GParted iso file from SourceForge.
  2. Expand the size of guest storage on VMware Settings menu. In my case, I expand the storage size from 50GB to 200GB.
  3. Point the CD/DVD(IDE) to the GParted file.

  4. Since we want to boot from CD/DVD drive, we have to change so on the boot screen by pressing F2 before it changes to grub menu. However since VMware’s boot screen only flashes less than 1 second, we will change that. Go to your .vmx; in my case, I have it in C:\Users\yuriardila\Documents\Virtual Machines\centos64-64bit\centos64-64bit.vmx

    Add this specific line to the file. Location does not matter.

    bios.bootdelay = 20000

    This wil increase boot screen delay to 20 seconds. Let’s hope that that is enough.

  5. Start VM, and enter setup menu by pressing F2.
  6. Change boot priority.
  7. Boot GParted. Follow default options.
  8. After it’s booted, it should show window like this. Now I want that unallocated partition to be combined with my main CentOS partition, which is /dev/sda2.
  9. This can be easily done. But first, I need to move the red part (linux swap), so that I can combine them. Right click on the linux swap, and choose Resize/Move, and then move the red box to a location you prefer. In my case, I have enough free space following, in case this swap area need more storage.
  10. Now we can enlarge our main linux partition as we will.
  11. Click Apply and wait until everything is done.
  12. Don’t forget to change your VMware’s boot delay setting back, or else you will have to wait for 20 seconds on each boot.