Add Additional Hard Disk Drive in Virtual Machine in VMWare Workstation

Adding an additional hard disk drive to a Virtual Machine in VM Ware Workstation is a real easy task. From the Library pane, right-click on your Virtual Machine, and then click Settings. You can also access Virtual Machine settings either by opening VM menu, or if your Virtual Machine is currently running, then right-click on your Virtual Machine tab, and then click Settings. If the Library pane is not visible, then you can press F9 key to turn it on or off, or click on View Menu, point to Customize, and then click Library. Do remember, if your Virtual Machine is in running state, then some feature may not be available under Settings window. So, if you want to configure some Advanced settings, then it is a good idea to turn off the virtual machine before.

From the Settings window, click the Add button, and then choose Hard Disk, and click Next button. Choose the Recommended, S C S I virtual hard disk type, and click Next. Select Create a New Virtual Disk, and then click Next. Specify the disk size, and choose, Store Virtual Disk as a Single File.

Browse for the location where you want to save the new virtual hard disk drive, and then click Finish. As the new Virtual Hard Disk Drive has been added to your virtual machine, you also need to configure the new drive in the Virtual Machine operating system. Turn On your Virtual Machine, if it is not already. Right-click on Computer, and click Manage. From the Computer Management window, click Disk Management. A pop-up window will appear, asking you to Initialize Disk before you can use it in Disk Management. You also need to choose the partition style that you want to configure for your new virtual hard disk drive.

If the Initialize Window doesn’t appear automatically, then you can right-click on Disk Number, and then click Initialize Disk. GPT file system has been designed for hard disk drives larger than 2 Tera Byte. So, for this practice session, we choose MBR, and hit OK.

Once the disk initialization is completed, your virtual hard disk will appear with total unallocated space. Now, you can right-click on the unallocated space, to create and configure new partitions, or volumes.

 



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