Mason Sklut

Ever since I have been using VMware Fusion, I never really thought about managing the disk space. Primarily because most of my documents and applications were stored on my Mac and not in the virtual machine partition. Therefore, when it did come time for installing applications in VMware, there were installation problems. It takes a little bit of work, but after following these instructions of which my tutorial is based on, you should be all set.

Getting The Tools For The Job

1. GParted – (download)
2. VDiskManager GUI – (download)
3. VMX Extras – (download)

Setting The Max Disk Size

1. With your Windows XP virtual machine shutdown completely, open up the VDiskManager GUI application.
2. Click on the Expand tab in VDiskManager. Then click “Choose”.
3. Go to “username/Library/Virtual Machines/Windows XP/Windows XP.vmdk”
4. Type in the maximum disk size you want in the box below. Then click “Go”.

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Editing The Startup Screen

1. You need to edit the startup screen so you can run commands.
2. To do so, open up the VMX Extras application.
3. Go to File > Open and browse to “username/Library/Virtual Machines/Windows XP/Windows XP.vmx”
4. In the Preconfigured Options tab, change the “BIOS Delay” to 5 seconds and then click “Change”.
5. Close VMX Extras and save the changes.

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Preparing GParted For Bootup Disk

1. In order to make the final changes for the repartition, you need to use GParted.
2. In VMware Fusion, go to the Virtual Machine > Settings menu (⌘ (Command) + E) and choose CDs & DVDs.
3. Under the CDs & DVDs menu, choose “Use disk image” and select the “GParted.iso” file.
4. Startup the Windows virtual machine in VMware Fusion now and hold down F2.

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Using The BIOS Startup Screen

1. After holding down F2, you should see the Main BIOS screen.
2. Hit the right arrow key until you are in the Boot tab.
3. Now use the “-” and “+” keys to manipulate the order of devices until “CD-ROM Drive” is on the top of the list.
4. Now hit the ⌘ (Command) key and F10 to save the configuration.

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Using The GParted Startup Screen

1. After saving your configuration, you will see the GParted intro screen.
2. Choose the first option, “GParted Live” (Default settings).
3. In the next pop-up screen, choose “Don’t touch keymap” and hit Return.
4. Hit Return when asked  “Which language do you prefer?” (English is default).
5. Hit Return when asked “Which mode do you prefer?”.
6. In the GParted screen that appears, use your arrow keys (because the mouse does not always work) and arrow over to “Resize/Move”.
7. Now drag the slider with your mouse (if it does not work with your mouse, enter numbers for the boxes). Then hit Tab until the “Resize/Move” button is selected below.
8. Now hit Tab once until the Undo button is selected, then arrow over to the right and select Apply and hit Return.
9. In the small pop-up window hit Tab until Apply is selected, then hit Return to apply the drive size changes.
10. You should see a window that shows the current status.
11. After it is done, close the window and close GParted by hovering your mouse over the Exit button and then click it when you see the black hand.
12. Now use your down arrow keys and choose Shutdown and hit Return.
13. As it shuts down you may receive a message window, choose Yes and hit Return to finish the shutdown.
14. If Windows starts up by accident, just shut it down from the main screen.

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Final Touches Before Using Newly Repartitioned Virtual Disk

1. Go to the Settings menu in VMware Fusion after making sure the virtual machine is shut down.
2. Under the CDs & DVDs settings, change it so it says “Automatically detect physical CD/DVD drive”.
3. With your virtual machine off, go to VMX Extras and open the “username/Library/Virtual Machines/Windows XP/Windows XP.vmx” file.
4. Go to the Preconfigured Options tab and change the BIOS Delay back to the default which is “No Bios Delay”.
5. Boot up Windows, it may do a disk check if necessary and may require you to restart after it fully boots.
6. Double check that your hard drive disk space has increased (My Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Right-click > Properties).

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Last year I purchased Roxio Toast because I needed a customized DVD burning software for my family video project. What drew me to Toast, was the ability to fit more onto a DVD disc without sacrificing quality. After spending more time with it, I have come up with several helpful ways to use Toast to its full potential.

Importing DVD’s For Use With iPod or iMovie

1. To import DVD’s into Toast, go to the Convert menu (AppleTV/iPhone icon).
2. Once, you have inserted the DVD of your choice, choose how you want to export it.
3. Located in the bottom left corner is a small gear icon which shows you the export options.
4. If you want to export the DVD for use on your iPod or iPhone, select the corresponding name under the Device drop-down.
5. If you want to export the DVD for use in iMovie, select “DV” from the Device drop-down menu.

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Burning An iMovie Project Without Using iDVD

1. One of the key problems with iMovie is that you have to go through iDVD to burn your iMovie project onto a DVD. With Toast, you just drag your iMovie project and it takes care of the rest.
2. To start, locate your iMovie project in Finder.
3. Then, drag it into the DVD-Video section under the Video menu.
4. If you wish to add a menu-style you can, but you don’t have to because the disc will automatically start playing the movie.
5. Now, click the Record button.

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Adding Flare To Movie DVD’s With Menu Styles

1. If you are making a DVD with several movies on it, you might want to consider using menu styles to visually organize the movies.
2. In your Toast project, choose the menu style you want by going to the Menu Style drop-down menu in Options sidebar.
3. Once, you have selected a style, feel free to edit the settings for that style by clicking on the More button in the Options sidebar.
4. A window will appear with three tabs: Disc, Menus, and Encoding. Choose Menus.
5. In the Menus window, you can add a title, edit the font colors, change the number of buttons, and so on.

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Creating A Photo Disc For PC and Mac Users

1. Toast makes it very easy to create a PC and Mac compatible photo disc because it uses Mac OS X drag-and-drop technology.
2. Simply just drag pictures from iPhoto, Lightroom, or where ever your photo library is into Toast’s Photo Disc section under the Data menu.
3. When you are all set, click the big red Record button and soon enough all of your pictures will have been burned onto a DVD or CD.
4. If you insert the photo disc into your computer, you will get a few neat options: Slideshow, Add to iPhoto (for Mac users), and Photos (folder).

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