Increase A Parallels Image Size

I don't use Windows much, but sometimes it is a necessary evil. When I originally installed Parallels, I very conservatively set my original disk size at the minimum, 8GB. With the new Service Pack 3 update and after installing a few programs within Windows I've found myself running very low on space. I used the Parallels Image Tool to expand my hard disk size thinking that would be an easy fix, problem is, it wasn't. Although the Parallels Image Tool does add more space to your virtual disk, Windows treats that as unused space. You can use that free space to create a new partition within Windows, but since I don't have that many files, that wouldn't solve my problem. What I needed was some way to easily take that unused space and allow my current installation of Windows XP to recognize it. After some searching I found a quick and easy solution so thought I'd post it here in hopes it could be of help to someone else.

1. Use the Parallels Image Tool to expand your virtual disk. This may take a while, so be patient, the rest of the process is fairly easy.
2. From within the Finder, create a duplicate of your hard disk image file. Mine was named winxp.hdd so the duplicate was named winxp copy.hdd
3. Open Parallels, but don't start Windows. You need to make two changes here. First, change the hard disk to the new duplicate image you just created. Second, add a second hard drive, and point that to your original virtual disk. Basically what you're doing is setting the copy to be your primary and boot disk, and adding the original as a secondary hard drive. In order for this procedure to work, you have to be booted from an image that is not the one you seek to change.
4. Boot into Windows and wait a few minutes for it to recognize the new hard drive. Once everything is up, go to the Start Menu and choose Run. Type "DISKPART" (no quotes)
5. Once inside DiskPart type "list volume" (again, no quotes in any of this) and hit return.
6. You should see to volumes. Volume 1 is the copy and Volume 2 is the original drive.
7. Type: "select volume 2" press return Then type "extend" and return. Give it a minute and it should say the process is complete. Once it's finished type "exit" and shut down windows.
8. When back to the Parallels settings screen, go back and remove the secondary hard drive that you added in Step 3 and set your original virtual disk as Hard Disk 1. At this point, we're putting things back the way they were before we started. You can also trash the virtual disk copy that you made in step 2.
9. Now, restart Windows and you should be back to your original virtual machine, though when you look at the disk properties, you should now see the extra free space. You will probably have to restart your windows after it's done recognizing the new hardware. Once that's done, you're back in business with your expanded disk space.