Need to Compress - can't Compress

Discussion in 'General Questions' started by Jon Richardson, Sep 10, 2007.

  1. Jon Richardson

    Jon Richardson Member

    Messages:
    21
    I am running Parallels 3.0 (4560) on a MacBook Pro with OSX 10.4.10 (fully updated).

    I have a Win XP Pro VM with no Snapshots and the Undo Drive feature is disabled. When I attempt to perform virtual HD compression I am told it has no drives available for compression because there are either active snapshots or the undo feature is "on". As I say, neither is true.

    When I look at the contents of the winxp.hdd drive (using show package contents) there appear to be two "orphaned" undo drives or snapshots which were presumably created when I last used those features (over a month ago). The .XML file also show these files in the description.

    So, how do I get rid of these so that I can compress my drive?

    Any suggestions would be welcome.
     
  2. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    Hello,

    thank you for your feedback. We are aware of this problem. Unfortunately I can't offer you any workaround for it now, but currently our developers working at this problem so it will be solved with future updates.

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  3. Jon Richardson

    Jon Richardson Member

    Messages:
    21
    Thanks for your quick reply.

    As a suggestion, it might be very helpful if there could be a feature somewhere (Image Tool? or Explorer?) which could be used to simply reset virtual HDDs to their pristine state after any such problems.

    In the meantime, I shall eagerly await a fix. Not too long to wait, I hope!

    Thanks again.
     
  4. Jon Richardson

    Jon Richardson Member

    Messages:
    21
    Excellent! Now I can compress.

    Full marks to the Parallels development guys! Build 5160 (final release) has fixed the very problem I described in my original posting. The Image Tool now has the feature to clean up snapshots, undo drives, etc..

    I am now compressing my hdd.

    Well done Parallels!
     
  5. Nathan Hall

    Nathan Hall Bit poster

    Messages:
    9
    I cannot compress by hardisk which has ballooned to 52gig on the host OS (Mac). I'm still only using 15gig of the 32gig disk according to the guest OS (Win XP). I have no snapshots, and undue feature is off. I have no ability to compress this thing. Please help!!! I have no idea how it got so large... I had to reduce my memory to 512k just to get it to boot becuase I now only have 1.4gig of free space on my MBP. Parallels is hogging it all. Please advise!!! I just paid for the parallels upgrade as well.
     
  6. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    Hello,

    could you please provide me with the following information?
    1. Go to Configuration Editor of your VM (Edit -> Virtual Machine), select 'Hard Disk' tab and tell me what is the 'Virtual Disk size'.
    2. Open 'Macintosh HD' -> <user name> -> 'Documents' -> 'Parallels' -> <VM name>. There you will find <VM name>.hdd file. Right-click on it and select 'Get Info'. What size is written there? One more time right-click on .hdd file and now select 'Show Package Contents'. Please send me a screenshot of this window.
    3. Start your VM. Open 'My Computer'. Right-click on the 'Local Disk(C:)', select 'Properties'. What is the numbers for 'Used space' and 'Free space'?

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  7. Ephra

    Ephra Member

    Messages:
    81
    Hi Stacey M,
    I also want to compress from time to time. here's mine:
    1. 305245 MB
    'advanced' screenshot:

    [​IMG]


    2. get info: 23,1 GB
    show package contents screenshot:

    [​IMG]


    3. used space: 15,6 GB
    free space: 16,1 GB
    (capacity: 31,8 GB)

    I use snapshots, I need that, I also need to compress my VM from time to time. Ho do I do that -I'm a bit confused by all those many different posts and questions/answers concerning this subject.

    thanks in advance
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2007
  8. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    Hello,

    unfortunately you can not use Compressor if you have Snapshots. The only way - you can merge your snapshots and then compress.

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  9. Ephra

    Ephra Member

    Messages:
    81
    yes, I got that ofcourse, but where do I go from there?
    Everyone who uses snapshots will also have to compress the VM at some point, won't they?
     
  10. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    As I said before, there should not be any Snapshots when you perform the compression. But you can still use Snapshots after compression. Only you will need to make new Snapshots because all the previous will ne lost.

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  11. Ephra

    Ephra Member

    Messages:
    81
    Ok, will do that. Thanx for your reply!

    ..merge = delete?
    where exactly do I merge/delete the snapshots? With my snapshot manager; choose delete? Or somewhere else?

    thanx again
     
  12. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    1. Shut down the virtual machine.
    2. Close Parallels.
    3. Browse to the Applications -> Parallels folder and start Parallels Image Tool.
    4. Choose the required virtual hard disk of the virtual machine and choose the "merge snapshots" option.

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  13. Ephra

    Ephra Member

    Messages:
    81
    gonna do that!
    thanx so much
     

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