Reducing VM size with a plain drive.

Hi, please help me before I cry like a baby in the corner! I have searched the threads here and have followed all the advice. I can now navigate my way to the configuration screen and clicl the button to compact the size of my drive (it is using 32g and I need the space elsewhere) It wont let me reduce the size, I think because I have a plain drive and not an expanding one!? There must be a way of reducing the drive without starting over -- Anyone help PLEASE? dennis.

 

Hello,

please convert you plain disk into an expanding one. To do it please use Parallels Image tool.

Best regards,
Stacey

 

I have tried this and it says that the image tool is unable to process the file as the format of the hard drive is not supported in the current version. if the hard disk is used by one or more vm s using snapshot manager then delete them!? and I have and it wont. ??

 

Dennis,
please tell me what build of Parallels do you have (Parallels Desktop -> About Parallels Desktop).

Best regards,
Stacey

 

hi build 4560 july 2007

 

Please update your Parallels Desktop via 'Help' -> 'Check for Updates'.

Best regards,
Stacey

 

ok I have done that and it needs a further 37gb to do that and I dont have 37gb spare?

 

37 GB are needed for safety purposes while converting the plain disk into expanding one. It is possible to use an external HD for this reason.
Unfortunately it is the only for reducing the size of image file.
Sorry for inconvenience.

Best regards,
Stacey

 

Thanks, so after that what will i do to ? will I get an option to change the size of the drive to say 10gb instead of 32 and then carry on as normal?

 

Then the size of your disk image will be the same as the size of used space in Guest OS, i.e. less then 32 GB.

Best regards,
Stacey

 

Cool I hope its that simple. I really appreciate your time and help have a great day/evening. Thankyou dennis

 

Ok I have now run that and the image is still 32gb in size. ??

 

I have done as requested and even compressed the drive and it is still 32gb in size. It dosnt say anywhere that it is now an expanding disk but neither will it give me an option to change it to an expanding disk, only to a plain drive. So I can only guess that it is no longer a plain drive. please can you help further?

 

Hello,

please try to Compact your Virtual Disk.

Best regards,
Stacey

 

I have compacted my disk and that made no difference.

 

Just wondering if your problem is similar like mine.

I accidentially converted my hd-file from single-piece to multi-file type.

After that ( and not being aware that it was multi-file now) i tried to compress my hd according to the PD user manual ( two step compression ! ).
Only to find out that the size of the hd file went up from 13.2 to 14.7 !!!

Then searched a lot in the forum and read several topics and came upon a thread telling about this multi-file feature.

So i started Image-Tool and converted the hd back to single-piece!

And Voila : Size of hd file is 5.5 GB now !


Hope this is related to your problem and could help you

regards

joerg

 

I think the confusion for me was COMPACTING or COMPRESSING it seems like they are different things, one runs while windows is running and the other while it isnt (dont quote me on that) I went back to systematically reading the manual again and again and then something just clicked and it was doing something different!

It cleaned up windows then it defragged the hard drive and then it COMPRESSED the drive. All this was done after converting it to a plain drive.

Thank PARALLELS for this forum tho, it really helps.

dennis