Any way to Decrease the Virtual Computer's size on my Mac hard drive?

I

IsraelActivist

Bit poster
Hi,

I am wondering if there is a way to reconfigure the size of the virtual computer's hard drive so I can have more space on my MacBook hard drive. I am running Parallel Desktop 2.0 for Mac, with Windows XP SP2. I have about 32GB allocated to the virtual computer and would like to reclaim some of the space, since I am only really using about 10GB of the space. Is this possible?

Thank you for your time.
 
Is it really using all 32 GB of space? If you are using an expanding disk, use Parallels compressor. If you are using a plain disk, use the Parallels Image Tool.
 
Is there a way to determine that?

Eru Ithildur said:
Is it really using all 32 GB of space? If you are using an expanding disk, use Parallels compressor. If you are using a plain disk, use the Parallels Image Tool.
Click to expand...

I am unsure whether I am using an expanding disk or a plain disk. Is there a way to determine which I am using? I cannot remember as I set up Parallels on my computer 6 months ago.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.
 
clone it to an external disk and run the Vm from there

I use an external LA Cie FW800 every day as a VM server
also clone the clone each week as a back up :-)
(I have not learned snapshots)

Hugh W
 
IsraelActivist,

Compare hdd sizes from both Mac and XP sides: if your virtual disc is expanding, from the windows side you'll see all your 32 GB and from the Mac side you'll see the real amount of occupied memory. And if it's plain the amount of GB will probably be the same from both sides.

Best regards,
Alicia.
 
Alicia,
I was getting a low disk space message on XP, so I tried increasing my virtual hd. When this didn't increase the size of my C Drive on XP, (I stupidly thought it would be that easy), I ended up deleting some files and solving the space problem that way. But the space I added to the virtual hd is of course still there...labeled "unallocated". Now I'm having the same problem as others getting rid of that unallocated space by trying to decrease the size of my virtual hd. I tried to use Image Tool but it only gives me the choices of

1) Increase the size of the virtual hard disk.
2) Convert plain virtual hard disk into expanding one.
3) Convert expanding virtual hard disk into plain one.
4) Defragment expanding virtual hard disk.

I had read that I could try the second option above and then use the compressor, but I got this message:
"The specified source virtual hard disk is not in plain format. Please specify another virtual hard disk."
So I then thought I might already have an expanding disk, so I tried the compressor. But after doing this I still seem to have my original C Drive as well as the additional unused unallocated space that I had added.

As you have probably gathered I'm not much of a computer expert, so if you could advise me in easy-to-understand steps I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks very much.
 
Hello,

trachshack, how did you try to increase the size of your virtual hd?
Here is the article with necessary steps for changing the size of virtual machine's hard disk, please, check it and perform the steps to activate your "unallocated" space. After that you can decrease it as well.

Best regards,
Alicia.
 
Last edited:
Hi Alicia,
In answer to your question, I had increased the size of my virtual HD by using the Parallels Image Tool.

As you suggested, I just activated the "unallocated space". Now, how do I get rid of it since I don't need it?

Thanks,
trachshack
 
Hello,

can you run Parallels Compressor to decrease the size of the virtual HD now?

Best regards,
Alicia.
 
Alicia,

I ran the compressor and it didn't reduce the size of my virtual hd or the newly activated but empty hd on my virtual XP. Any suggestions? Thanks.
 
Hello,

could you please compare the size of your virtual hd from the VM (My Computer->Your Hard Drive->Properties) and from the Mac side (search the .hdd file in the Spotlight and Get Info)? Are they different?

Best regards,
Alicia.
 
The two hard drives on the VM are 7.79 GB for my original C Drive, and 27.3 GB for the new drive that I added. On the Mac side my winxp.hdd file is 8.92 GB. Does this make sense? Thanks.
 
Alicia, if I may throw a related issue/question in...

I've also beeb running low on disk space on my MBP. Somehow my winxp.hdd is 52gig! It keeps growing but I don't anything on it in terms of docs, images, etc. I ran a mac utility called WhatSize.app and found that inside of the winxp.hdd there is four "winxp.hdd.0." of differing sizes. They are 22.9gb, 13.1gb, 9.28gb and 6.76gb. Is this normal? I want to decrease the size of this thing becuase it is forcing me to free up space on the Mac side that I don't have.
 
I'll also add that I am now down to like 512mb of free space and can barely free up enough to run the VM. Awaiting your reply... so thank you in advance for any help you can provide me! :)
 
Sorry, last bit of info. Looks like the original size I allocated to the NTFS volume (using parallels explorer) was 32gig. I appear to only be using 15gig of it.

From the Mac side however, the sizes in my first post still hold true (52gig). What is cuasing this bloat?
 
Hello,

trachshack, please, go to Control Panel->Administrative tools->Computer Management->Disc Management and make a screenshot of it. Attach it please to your response here.
Then, you can find your newly created and empty partition there and delete it (right-click->Delete Logical Drive). And then go to PD->Configuration Editor->Hard Disc tab->Advanced and press "Compact" button. It should optimize the size of the virtual hd.

Nathan Hall, please, open Snapshot Manager - are there any snapshots? It seems that thise 4 parts of the .hdd are snapshots.
As for the entire hdd, you can convert your plain virtual hd into the expanding one and run Parallels Compressor.

Best regards,
Alicia.
 
Virtual hard drive is 32 gb using only 7

Im having a similar problem, I hope this explains what has happened.
My virtual hard disk seemed to automatically increase to 32gb when i installed some large files, after i deleted the files from windows the hard disk usage went back down to about 7gb usage although in disk properties it says the size is still 32gb.
my Macbook is low on hard disk space because of the amount that windows is using.
How do i reduce the amount of hard disk allocated to windows so that I can give it back to my macbook.
I have tried the disk tool but i cant get past choose source image file because i cant find it.
please help
 
I had the same problems as all these guys above and it wouldnt let me do any of them until I had the VM machine defrag itself, when it had actually defragged then it allowed me to compress with results.
 
I took the drastic action of removing parallels and everything in the library that had the word parallels in it.
I then re installed it from scratch
seems ok now, released 27 gb
thanks
 
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