So, this is a strange one to me, but for reasons beyond my control, we have a vCenter server running on a virtualized Windows guest. This vCenter server is also the only vCenter server for the site (vSphere datacenter) it is at, and runs on the same ESXi hosts it manages.
In doing an upgrade to the latest ESXi 5.5 issue, to resolve the e1000 vNIC + Windows PSOD on 5.x.0.0 ESXi versions, I've had to upgrade the vCenter server at this site. It went horribly because the only disk on the server is undersized, so I had to compress it, which seems to have completely mucked up the install because it compressed the VMware ..\Infrastructure\... folders under Program Files and Program Files (x86), which vCenter really does not like – the folder compression/decompression dance I had to do to free up enough space for installation essentially destroyed the vCenter SSO service for both sites, and the vCenter Server service at this site is unusable.
Given that I now have to redo the install on this server, I was hoping to increase the size of the disk drive, which I realized is not an available option to me, because this virtualized vCenter server has to be powered on, and used by itself to run… itself (vCenter).
So, does anyone know of a way to increase the disk size of this ESXi host, while it's powered on? (Because it has to be powered on, as it is also the vCenter server.)
Bonus points and admiration if anyone knows how to remove that irritating floppy disk device as well.
Best Answer
Delete any outstanding snapshots of the vCenter VM, then you should be able to resize the disk while the VM is running.