You can’t resize the installation partition without restarting your computer, just like you can’t on the host machine. Gparted, a simple partition manager, can be used to restart your computer and resize the root/installation partition.
Simply expanding the partition from the virtual machine does not immediately make that space available in the virtual machine. It must be made usable with tools like GParted.
Use GParted to Increase Your Storage Size:
- First, obtain a copy of GParted Live iso.
- Select the virtual machine and open its settings after downloading the GParted iso. Select the GParted iso from Storage > Add Optical disk (icon).
- Go to System > Motherboard and move Optical to the top of the Boot Order list.
- GParted is now ready to boot the virtual machine. Finally, the virtual machine should be started.
- GParted will start with the default settings. It may take a minute or two for the computer to boot, after which you will see the GParted screen.
- Select the partition you want to enlarge and then click the Resize/Move button. Use the slider to change the size of the partition. When finished, click the Resize/Move button to save your changes. The space from the free space will be added to the currently selected partition. The process may take some time depending on your system and the amount of storage space you want to add.
- When the resize process is finished, remove the GParted iso from the virtual machine to return to the main system.