Instructions to Resize the Hard Drive of an Amazon Windows Server

  1. Go the the EC2 Instances Page of the Management Console
  2. The instance you want to resize must be turned off
  3. Select the instance and look at the frame at the bottom write the following:
    1. The zone, for example, "us-east-1b"
    2. The instance id, for example, "i-96d931f4"
      Note this is also next to the check box
  4. Right click the line with the check box, and select "Create Image (EBS AMI)"
  5. Write any convenient name and description in the dialog box. Click "Create This Image"
  6. On the left hand frame under Elastic Block Storage, select snapshots
  7. The progress will show for the current snapshot. It could take a long while to finish the snapshot. You might need to refresh the page to get the lastest progress. On Mozilla in Linux, I have to refresh
  8. When it is finished, right click and select, "Create Volume from Snapshot". A pop up window will appear, where you can choose size, and availability zone
    1. Here is a listing of sizes and instance types which is helpful for choosing the size of a volume. I usually select 160 Gb, because that is plenty of memory, and it is the size of the small instance, in case I want to run in 1 processor mode to save money.
    2. For availability zone, choose the zone that you noted previously in step 3.1, for example, "us-east-1b"
    Click, "Yes Create", when you have chosen.
  9. Write down the snap shot id, in the second column. You will need this.
  10. When it is finished, click Volumes under Elastic Block Storage, on the left frame.
  11. Select the the Volume you just created. It has the snap shot id, you just noted. It also has todays date, and time in the Created column.
  12. Right click and select detach volume.
  13. Select the unused volume which you just created. It has a blue dot, and available, in the status column.
  14. Right click and select attach instance, choose the instance id you saved in step 3.1, for example, "i-96d931f4".
  15. enter, "/dev/sda1" as the attachement point
  16. click, "Yes Attach"
  17. Go back to the instance pages, slect the instance you have been working, for example, "i-96d931f4", right click, select start, click "Yes Start"
  18. RDP to the running computer
  19. For Windows 2008
    1. RDP to the instance>
    2. start
    3. Administrative tools
    4. Computer Management
    5. Storage, Disk Management
    6. Select the C: Drive, right click, select Extend
    7. The default is to use all the empty space, so click Next
    8. Finish
    9. You are done so you can shut down
    For Linux
    1. to be written latter