1. Mac OS Version - 10.5.5 2. Parallels Build # - 5608 3. What kind of computer - Apple MBP 4. Total Physical RAM - 2GB (1GB dedicated to Parallels) 5. Hard Drives (110GB - 32GB Free for main HD; 75GB External HD where Parallels/Windows XP files are located) 6. If you are using a BootCamp configuration or not - No 7. Did you upgrade from a BETA - No 8. With what Build did the problem start - 5608 9. If Parallels Tools are installed - Yes 10. Anything you have tried to get things working - Deleting anything to do with snapshots I have my Parallels/XP files stored on my external drive (75GB). I know I have system restore turned off and snapshots is off (had it on before). I removed the snapshots directory/backups from the drive, but my winxp.hdd keeps growing to the point I have no more room left on my external HD to run Parallels. Why does it keep growing and how can I get it to run again?
Right Click on hdd inside VM folder - show package contens and post here DiskDescriptor.xml file By the way if you see there several hds files, it means you are still using Snapshots
Thanks for replying John! I thought I stopped snapshots, but I guess all I did was remove it from the VM folder once it got too big to run Parallels. I did notice a new snapshots folder the other day and got rid of it. How can I turn it off? I did see two .hds files in the Show Package Contents directory. If I read this xml file correctly, it says parallels tools is not installed, but if I go to the parallels tools within XP, then I can open it up and enable the different synchronizations and sharing and what not. Is that not Parallels Tools? One other thing that just started yesterday was my keyboard is acting funny. Some keys are really being touchy, like if I try to capitalize a letter, it takes me 3 or 4 times to hold "shift" down to get it to capitalize. It doesn't have that issue on the mac side. <Parallels_disk_image Version="1.0" > <Disk_Parameters> <Disk_size>65536128</Disk_size> <Cylinders>65016</Cylinders> <Heads>16</Heads> <Sectors>63</Sectors> <Tools> <Installed>No</Installed> </Tools> <Miscellaneous> <ChangeState>0</ChangeState> <SuspendState>0</SuspendState> </Miscellaneous> </Disk_Parameters> <StorageData> <Storage> <Start>0</Start> <End>65536128</End> <Blocksize>63</Blocksize> <Image> <GUID>{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}</GUID> <Type>Compressed</Type> <Flags/> <File>winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds</File> </Image> <Image> <GUID>{76a83910-c9bd-4cac-8067-ed08ffc39950}</GUID> <Type>Compressed</Type> <Flags/> <File>winxp.hdd.0.{76a83910-c9bd-4cac-8067-ed08ffc39950}.hds</File> </Image> </Storage> </StorageData> <Snapshots> <Shot> <GUID>{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}</GUID> <ParentGUID>{76a83910-c9bd-4cac-8067-ed08ffc39950}</ParentGUID> </Shot> <Shot> <GUID>{76a83910-c9bd-4cac-8067-ed08ffc39950}</GUID> <ParentGUID>{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}</ParentGUID> </Shot> </Snapshots> </Parallels_disk_image>
Okay that decreased the file size by a lot. I am not able to run parallels and have 15-20GB to spare on my drive. The question now, to avoid going through all of this again, is how do I prevent it from growing?
Please note that Snapshots are not using for backup, but for keeping stages, Use backup by copying VM, to safe place, and disk will not grow
OK. How do I know if Snapshots will stop doing what it's doing to increase the disk size? It hasn't grown since I merged the snapshots, and I don't see any Snapshots folder anymore, but is there anything else I have to do to prevent Snapshots from running? Or by merging the Snapshots, did that do it? Thanks!