How to create and add a new virtual hard-disk to a Virtual Machine – VMware Workstation

Here are the steps to create and add an extra virtual disk (hard drive) to a Windows VM.

Reasons why you may want to add a new virtual hard drive
– You are running out of hard disk space
– You need an additional virtual hard disk as a dedicated virtual drive for backing up files in the virtual machine
– You want a virtual disk which can be migrated to another virtual machine on a different location to transfer files and folder

Steps in Creating a VHD
In order to create and add a new, empty virtual hard drive to a Windows virtual machine

- Shut down the virtual machine.
- Go to Virtual Machine 
- Click on Settings.
- Click Add Device 
- Click on New Hard Disk.
- Click Next.
- Click Create a new virtual disk and
- Click Next.

To go to the Disk Capacity screen, specify the space you want and how you want the file to be stored.
- Click Next.
- Select the location to store the virtual disk in the storage folder of the virtual machine.
- Click Finish.

The next step will be to power on the virtual machine.
- Initialize and format the new drive.

To initialize and format the new drive in Windows follow these steps. These steps could differ from your Windows Edition

- Click on the Start Menu, 
- Type diskmgmt.msc and 
- Click on OK.
- Right-click the disk to be initialized and 
- Click Initialize Disk. 

Here Windows will prompt you to initialize the disk before the Logical Disk Manager can access it.
- Select MBR (Master Boot Record) and click OK.
- Right-click the unallocated space and 
- Click on New Simple Volume.
- Click Next.
- Enter the size of the partition (in MB) and click Next.
- Select a drive letter and click Next.
- Select the file system type and volume name.
- Click Next.
- Click Finish. 

Next Windows will prompt you to format the drive.
- Click Format.

Henceforth, your drive is now available for usage.