I am running Compactor inside Parallels for Mac OS X on a WinXP Pro image. I left Compressor running overnight at the "Prepare to Compact Disk(s)" stage. This morning (6 hours later when it hadn't moved 1 block) I cancelled it, rebooted, and restarted the compacting process. It proceeded as normal to exactly the same spot: "Prepare to Compact Disk(s)" Hours later, it hasn't moved at all. What next? The total size is listed as 7.79Gb and free space is 3.73 GB.
For you virtual disk size it should take longer than 15-20 minutes. Try to stop VM, go to VM configuration->HDD and click on Compact button there.
Compacted, now VM is too small? Thanks, I didn't even realize that was an option. I will definitely do that in the future. Whenever I compact, XP complains constantly about the virtual memory being too small and says that it will increase it. I presume this is normal?
Message of virtual memory being too small could happen sometimes since Compressor truncates and recreates Windows page file. Just ignore it.
I have come across the same problem, and no, neither compacting method works, they both stop somewhere. i have left it for up to 41 hours. No progress. My xp image is growing to be more than half my hard drive when it should be, oh 10gb max. I'm about to delete it completely and ask for my money back.
JohnKFisher, What VM product do you use and for which primary OS? Do you use Compact feature or Parallels Compressor?
The Compact/Compressor debackle is a real downer for Parallels!! Sir: Indeed I have poured over quantum numbers of messages across the totality of the Internet attempting to understand what is going on here with this compact/compressor nonsense. Let us present a scenario: I have a customer that has an 80GB hdd image with Windows XP Pro on it, that he installed Partition Magic onto. He reduced the only partition on the 80GB hdd image from 80GB to 20GB, and ran compressor, days went by, and he never saw any reduction, but in fact, an increase in disk space used by the hdd! He has now decided to run compactor (and it is running right now). Can you please explain any and or all of the following: (1) What is the difference between using "Compact" from within the Virtual Machine editor sub-window and running Compressor (inherent to the MacOS hosted version of Parallels) on a Windows XP Pro installation? (2) If an hdd file has a 20GB Windows XP Pro partition, and 60GB "unpartitioned" how does one reduce the geometry of the disk such that it looks as though it is the size of just the one 20GB partition? (3) If you could accomplish such (as is articulated in query #2), how would you then assert the compression of the hdd file from 80GB down to 20GB (or whatever portion thereof is actually allocated, presume 20GB is larger than the footprint of disk space actually in use)? How do these questions juxtapose when considered in a Windows hosted environment? How do these questions juxtapose when considered in a Linux hosted environment? V/R, Stuart
try to skip the two-stage compacting process and go for one stage only. it seems to work better, faster and with good space savings. i just tried it and its the first time i have seen compacting through and reduced the VM (hdd) size from 28 to 10 GB! for reference: i used the compacting function from the control panel of the virtual machine.
Mine stops compacting midway through even though I am using compactor from control panel of VM. Now it won't boot to Windows XP Pro. It starts and then stalls when it gets to the Applying User Settings screen in Windows. Seems as though compacting must have done something to the .hdd file. I tried reinstalling 5608 but same problem.
Please backup Virtual machine using one of the suggestions in Parallels Desktop for Mac user guide from http://www.parallels.com/en/download/file/doc/Parallels_Desktop_for_Mac_User_Guide.pdf on page 243, e.g cloning Virtual Machine, or simply copying Virtual machine folder (when Parallels Desktop is in stopped state), such operations if incorrectly performed can lead to data loss. and perform Windows repair as described in http://kb.parallels.com/en/5138
