I had originally installed Parallels (build 5608) (windows xp) on my mac (leopard) hard drive - but it was taking up so much room, along with my other files, that I only had less than 1GB left on my HD and had performance issues. So I moved my Parallels folder to an external HD (75GB). It had been working fine, albeit a touch slower for quite a while....Sometimes after I disconnected the external HD so I could take my MBP into the other room, I'd come back, plug it back in and it would have fits about starting parallels. The latest error message says I'm out of disk space on the external HD. Specifically, Parallels Desktop cannot save any data to virtual hard disk image file. The hd of your host computer is full, please free up some space on the hd and click retry. How much space does Parallels need to run? It's a 75GB external HD. I don't even have that much space on my internal HD to move it back. DO I really need all these files: Microsoft Windows XP.pvs (4KB) Snapshots Directory (1GB) unattended.fdd (1.4mb) Windows Applications Directory (10MB) Windows Disks Directory (16KB) winxp 2.hdd (4KB) winxp.hdd (48.61 GB) winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds (24.4GB) If I must, I can delete the snapshots to even run windows again, but will this always keep growing and totally outgrow everything or is there some sort of memory issue? Is this file necessary: winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds (24.4GB) ? <confusing> One other confusing detail is awhile back I tried to create a new XP VM. So when I start up Parallels I now have to choose between Windows XP and Windows XP1 (which may be why I have the winxp 2.hdd?) - I don't use the first one (Windows XP) because I had moved the original XP folder to the external HD and had to rename it after messing around with this second one, which since the original one was off the HD, I guess Parallels named it XP and not XP1...so basically after all that rambling, it's backwards... what I use is XP1 (which is on the external HD and not XP). Also, the second VM (XP) seemed to have installed in a very different location. If I open Parallels and I'm at the screen where I choose which VM I want to load, if I highlight the first Windows XP (which I don't use), and click choose, I can see where it's located. If I look at the dropdown showing the path, the path shows My Computer > Macintosh HD > Volumes. In the Volumes Directory, there's another Macintosh HD image, a Maxtor (HD) directory icon, and a Maxtor external drive icon. If I open the Directory Icon, I see the XP and XP1. If I open XP, it has th XP.pvs, winxp.hdd, unattended.fdd, Windows Apps and Windows Disks. This XP folder is only 1GB! The XP1 directory is empty. If I open the Maxtor HD external Drive icon, this is what I see when I click on the Maxtor icon in the devices list. But when I go into the actual external HD, I don't see any directory for the 2nd (XP) VM. So I'm not sure how or where it's being stored (even though it says it's in the Maxtor Directory. </confusing> So..I got some funky things going on here. How can I make things run more smoothly here?
File is necessary, it is Windows hdd file I suppose your files are in Snapshots folder, before merging Snapshots or deleting them, abckup VM first
Not the VM files, just the snapshot files are in the snapshots folder, no? What do you mean back up VM? The whole folder? Or a file? I can't, though! That's the problem, no space. I can't really back it up anywhere...I guess I could move the snapshots to the MBP... But what about the real problem of the size? Why is it continually growing? Because I install more apps?
Ah...system restore is on. If my hard drive is fixed and am cutting it close, would you recommend turning it off? I thought snapshots took one snapshot of everything at that time...kind of like system restore. What's the difference? Should I remove snapshots?
Snapshots are not for backup but for keeping stages for backup , use Clone VM, or just copy Vm to the safe place
