I'm using Mandriva Linux on VMWare Player. It's a Mandriva Linux VMWare Appliance I downloaded from the VMWare website.

I expanded the initial disk size from 8GB to 25GB. When I start the Virtual Machine, and type in df -h the disk is still 8GB only. How do I get Mandriva to see the extra disk space I have allocated?

Below is df -h
[root@mandriva-vm etc]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 4.1G 3.1G 777M 81% /
/dev/sda6 3.4G 215M 3.2G 7% /home

Create new partitions with the additional space, use:

If I do the fdisk /dev/sda

Will that expand the root directory? I need to increase the size of /dev/sda1

Yes you can do that first create a new partition then mount it to any folder under '/'. You should not mount the new partition directly into '/'.

When I run fdisk /dev/sda

It asks me if its a
Primary
Logical

What will it be?

Below is the full output.
[root@mandriva-vm vmplanet]# fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 3263.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
l logical (5 or over)
p primary partition (1-4

I selected P Primary.

That's completed howvever, something isn't right here becuase when I try to create a file system, it tells me that "there is no such device"

Below is the entire output of fdisk -l and mkfs commands.
[root@mandriva-vm vmplanet]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 26.8 GB, 26843545600 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3263 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 538 4321453+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 539 1044 4064445 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 1045 3263 17824117+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 539 604 530113+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 605 1044 3534268+ 83 Linux
[root@mandriva-vm vmplanet]# mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sda3
mke2fs 1.41.9 (22-Aug-2009)
Could not stat /dev/sda3 --- No such file or directory

The device apparently does not exist; did you specify it correctly?
[root@mandriva-vm vmplanet]#

Run this command first:

Hi,

I ran your cammand but i got the following error. (I'm on Mandriva Linux, if that makes any difference)

[root@mandriva-vm vmplanet]# partprobe /dev/sda
bash: partprobe: command not found
[root@mandriva-vm vmplanet]#

That means partprobe (package name is parted) is not installed in your system, either install partprobe or restart the system.

Ok I restarted and it all worked. But please look at the output below as the goal was to expand the root disk and from what I see below we haven't done that instead we have just created another partition under the root.

Ideally I need to expand that 17GB that is now allocated to sda3 to sda1

[root@mandriva-vm etc]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 4.1G 3.0G 947M 76% /
/dev/sda6 3.4G 215M 3.2G 7% /home
/dev/sda3 17G 173M 16G 2% /disk1
[root@mandriva-vm etc]#

As I said before you can't increase / directly, this is the only way to increase the disk size, as this partition is under /, that means the additional space is also added to the / partition.
Though this space can only be used from /disk1, but that should not be a problem after all disk1 resides in /.
In other words you have expanded / partition size.

Ok I think I understand.

If I install software like Oracle and Install it on the root, when it reaches the 4.1GB as in the output below, will data automatically store on the /disk1 mount which has 17GB space available?

I'm afraid it won't use the free partition during Oracle installation, but you can install oracle on /disk1.

Ok I can Install Oracle on disk1

But what happens when sda1 fills up which only has 947MB left? Will Linux still operate?

Can anyone please enlighten me on my last question?

I wish to know what will happen when sda1 fills up given the fact that I have added 17GB to sda3 which from what I understand is an extension of disk space to sda1.