This section discusses how to add a secondary disk to an existing virtual disk and how to configure and access it in Microsoft Windows.
Follows a list of the covered points :
• Add a secondary disk for the user data (20 Gb)
• Make it accessible in Windows
• Move existing data to new partition
Add Harddisk
Add Partition
Move Data
Add Harddisk
To add new hardware to your virtual machine, shutdown your running machine and open the Settings control panel using the Virtual Machine -> Settings menu entry.
As described above, a secondary 20GB disk is added to the virtual machine acting as a future data disk. Select the Hard Disks icon in the settings control panel to open the corresponding dialog.
In the hard disk applet, click the + symbol to add the definition to the virtual machine’s hardware. Make the necessary adjustments such as the disk size.
By default, Fusion will name the disk as Virtual Disk.vmdk but in the dialog you have the option to choose a more user friendly name: Click the File name drop down list box and select the New... option. Fusion now opens a filesystem dialog and asks for a new name of the virtual disk to create.
In this example, I use WinXP@Tutorial-Data.vmdk as disk name.
Once the disk customization is finished, click on the Apply button to save the modified configuration and close the settings control panel.
The next step is to make the new disk usable in Windows. To do so, restart the virtual machine and follow the steps outlined in the Add Partition section.
To add new hardware to your virtual machine, shutdown your running machine and open the Settings control panel using the Virtual Machine -> Settings menu entry.
As described above, a secondary 20GB disk is added to the virtual machine acting as a future data disk. Select the Hard Disks icon in the settings control panel to open the corresponding dialog.
In the hard disk applet, click the + symbol to add the definition to the virtual machine’s hardware. Make the necessary adjustments such as the disk size.
By default, Fusion will name the disk as Virtual Disk.vmdk but in the dialog you have the option to choose a more user friendly name: Click the File name drop down list box and select the New... option. Fusion now opens a filesystem dialog and asks for a new name of the virtual disk to create.
In this example, I use WinXP@Tutorial-Data.vmdk as disk name.
Once the disk customization is finished, click on the Apply button to save the modified configuration and close the settings control panel.
The next step is to make the new disk usable in Windows. To do so, restart the virtual machine and follow the steps outlined in the Add Partition section.
Add Partition
Once the virtual disk is added to the virtual machine, it must be made visible to the Microsoft Windows operating system. Power on the virtual machine and follow the next steps to initialize the secondary disk.
In Windows, click the Start button and select the Control Panel entry in the shown dialog.
Once the Control Panel is launched, select Performance and Maintenance, Administrative Tools and launch the Computer Management applet. There are other ways to launch the Management Console, but the described one always works (even if no desktop icons are shown).
A much simpler way is to right-click on the My Computer icon on your Windows desktop and select the Manage menu item. Unfortunately, all desktop icons except the Trash are hidden in the default installation of Windows XP. Unhiding these icons is discussed n the Customize XP section in this tutorial.
In the left pane of the graphical user interface, select the Storage / Disk Management option. The Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard pops up and safely follow the wizard with the default options to initialize the new disk in basic format.
If you canceled the wizard, the initialization is done by right-clicking on the area with the Not initialized disk state notification.
Once the disk is initialized for Windows, a new partition needs to be created. Right-click on the unallocated region of the new disk and click the New Partition menu to launch the New Partition wizard.
The easiest way is to create a new primary partition and use all available space for the new partition. A maximum of 4 primary partitions is allowed, otherwise you need to use extended partitions.
Also keep care to assign a drive letter to the newly created partition. In this tutorial, I choose the drive letter W (for work), but they can easily be changed in the GUI after the partition is created.
The partition needs to be formated with a filesystem before files can be stored. The preferred filesystem in newer Windows versions is NTFS. Another common choice is FAT32 because it can be read by any other operating system.
The secondary disk is now visible and accessible in Windows and can be used to store information.
In the next section of this tutorial, a change is made to move all existing files in the My Documents folder to this new partition. A nice side effect is that all applications reading and writing by default to the My Documents folder will be redirected to the new location.
Once the virtual disk is added to the virtual machine, it must be made visible to the Microsoft Windows operating system. Power on the virtual machine and follow the next steps to initialize the secondary disk.
In Windows, click the Start button and select the Control Panel entry in the shown dialog.
Once the Control Panel is launched, select Performance and Maintenance, Administrative Tools and launch the Computer Management applet. There are other ways to launch the Management Console, but the described one always works (even if no desktop icons are shown).
A much simpler way is to right-click on the My Computer icon on your Windows desktop and select the Manage menu item. Unfortunately, all desktop icons except the Trash are hidden in the default installation of Windows XP. Unhiding these icons is discussed n the Customize XP section in this tutorial.
In the left pane of the graphical user interface, select the Storage / Disk Management option. The Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard pops up and safely follow the wizard with the default options to initialize the new disk in basic format.
If you canceled the wizard, the initialization is done by right-clicking on the area with the Not initialized disk state notification.
Once the disk is initialized for Windows, a new partition needs to be created. Right-click on the unallocated region of the new disk and click the New Partition menu to launch the New Partition wizard.
The easiest way is to create a new primary partition and use all available space for the new partition. A maximum of 4 primary partitions is allowed, otherwise you need to use extended partitions.
Also keep care to assign a drive letter to the newly created partition. In this tutorial, I choose the drive letter W (for work), but they can easily be changed in the GUI after the partition is created.
The partition needs to be formated with a filesystem before files can be stored. The preferred filesystem in newer Windows versions is NTFS. Another common choice is FAT32 because it can be read by any other operating system.
The secondary disk is now visible and accessible in Windows and can be used to store information.
In the next section of this tutorial, a change is made to move all existing files in the My Documents folder to this new partition. A nice side effect is that all applications reading and writing by default to the My Documents folder will be redirected to the new location.
Move Data
Moving existing data from the current My Documents location to the new partition is quite easy if done through the configuration wizard. Open the Properties dialog box for the My Documents icon, but how to do this in a default Windows XP setup ?
As mentioned earlier, these desktop icons are hidden in a default XP setup. The easiest way to gain access to the properties sheet is to click the Start button and then right-click on the My Documents folder located on the right side of the menu.
Once the context menu is displayed, select the Properties menu entry to display the configuration dialog.
The next step is to move all contents within this folder to the new partition. Click the Move button and select the new location for My Documents. This can be either the root of the partition or a new subfolder on this partition.
Click the Apply or OK button to transfer the files to the new location.
Moving existing data from the current My Documents location to the new partition is quite easy if done through the configuration wizard. Open the Properties dialog box for the My Documents icon, but how to do this in a default Windows XP setup ?
As mentioned earlier, these desktop icons are hidden in a default XP setup. The easiest way to gain access to the properties sheet is to click the Start button and then right-click on the My Documents folder located on the right side of the menu.
Once the context menu is displayed, select the Properties menu entry to display the configuration dialog.
The next step is to move all contents within this folder to the new partition. Click the Move button and select the new location for My Documents. This can be either the root of the partition or a new subfolder on this partition.
Click the Apply or OK button to transfer the files to the new location.