.hdd file growing

Discussion in 'General Questions' started by boecherer, Jan 30, 2008.

  1. boecherer

    boecherer Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    My .hdd file is growing and the format of the virtual file is not an "expanding disk." I originally made the file 50GB fixed. It had been that way until I did a snapshot. The snapshot made the file grow and I figured it was because the changes we being kept in the file.

    But now my file is up to 86 GB (it has grown a few times to get to this size). I have not done any more snapshots and even tried deleting an old snapshot, but the files stay large.

    In Windows the size of the C: drive is 50GB so Windows still thinks the hard drive is 50GB, but in actuality the file is 86GB on my Mac hard drive.

    Any ideas what could be going on here and is there a way to get the files back to 50GB again? Can I save all the files to a new virtual file while keeping everything in tact and having it still bootable? and not have Windows think it's a new hardware setup and want to validate Windows and Office again like as if they were being run the first time and had not been activated yet.

    Frank
     
  2. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    Hello,

    please use Parallels Image Tool to delete snapshots.
    Then please go to Macintosh HD -> Users -> "Your user name (The house" icon) ->Documents (Library) -> Parallels) and open the Virtual Machine Name folder. Right-click (CTRL+click for Mac mouse or SHIFT+CTRL+click for Mac mouse) on the .hdd file and select "Show Package Contents". Please provide me with a screenshot of this window.

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  3. boecherer

    boecherer Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    Hi Stacey...

    Attached is a screenshot of the "Show Package Contents" window.

    When I saw the package contents, I tried some experimenting (after making a full backup). I tried deleting the snapshot points and using the package with Parallels but it said the file was corrupted. I then tied deleting the snapshots and then made a new parallels launcher with the 50GB .hdd file and used it but it reverted back to the original 50GB point in time and not the latest point in time.

    In anticipation of what might you might reply with/what might be possible, is there some way to apply the snapshots to the 50GB file so I am current to "today" and then be left with only a current 50GB file? Or do I have to extract everything to an external file and somehow apply the snapshots?

    Also, I had tried doing a snapshot ONCE, why is it making more of them when the snapshot function is tuned off?

    You help would be appreciated since my Mac hard drive is too low on space to do a suspend now so I have to shut down Windows every time I want to "sleep" and go somewhere.

    Thanks

    Frank
     

    Attached Files:

  4. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    Hello,

    please start 'Parallels Image Tool', select your .hdd file and try to merge snapshots there. Will it help?

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  5. boecherer

    boecherer Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    I started the merge last night before you replied since I read some other posts that mentioned similar problems and that a merge might help.

    For those wondering, the merge took about 5 hours to merge my 3 snapshots with my 50GB file. It got perilously close to having no space on the Mac volume, but after it got past the first phase it cleared up 12GB of space and then move on to digesting the next snapshots and free up more space as it finished each snapshot merge.

    It did seem to help, but...... I have no TCP/IP / Internet. I get an "error 2" when trying to PING, etc. I've found some info that says my WINSOCK might be corrupt and I've followed all the steps and it doesn't seem to help. This probably isn't a Parallels issue any more (even though Parallels caused the problem) since it's a Windows XP WINSOCK problem, but if you or anyone knows how to get past this problem, that would be great.

    I have one system restore point I can go back to but I'm not sure I want to do that after going through this big merge process. I'm not sure how well it will perform a system restore at this point.

    I've removed ZoneAlarm in Windows and tried reinstalling the Parallels Tools and none of that seems to help either. I'm going to try a Windows repair now.

    Frank
     
  6. boecherer

    boecherer Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    *** UPDATE ***

    I finally got everything working. I had to do a Windows repair installation to get the TCI/IP working properly. So the merge seemed to work to solve the problem, but somewhere in the mix the merge caused a total meltdown of TCP/IP and WINSOCK.

    Frank
     

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