Re: How to reduce/shrink the size of a VirtualPC disk image (reclaim unused space)

user_at_domain.invalid
Date: 10/08/04 

Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 01:08:25 +0200

Thanks a lot for the Ghost-instructions, I'll try to apply them as soon
as I get my copy of Ghost. I had just searched the Web for it and found
nothing (and hadn't figured out yet how to full-text search this
newsgroup ... now I know, via Google).

Steve Jain wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 14:56:29 +0200, user@domain.invalid wrote:
>
>
>>Hello,
>>
>>I am confronted with a ballooning VirtualPC (6.0) disk image (16GB from
>>within Windows, OS X sees a 20GB file) although I have less than 4GB of
>>data on my C-drive in W2k. As far as I understand it, this is due to
>>files deleted in Windows still taking up space on the harddrive. I
>>probably aggravated the problem by converting my image to a fixed-sized
>>one (and converting it back to a dynamic one).
>
> Yes, if you convert a dynamically expanding drive to a fixed disk, it
> will expand the drive to its maximum size, i.e. 16GB. Converting it
> back to a dynamically expanding disk will NOT reduce the size.
>
>
>>The solution I found on the net (e.g.
>>http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/vpcfaq/VPCFAQ5-GeneralTipsandTri.html#5.11
>>) is to zero the unused disk space in Windows (after defragmentation),
>>using software referenced in the previous link, shut down Windows,
>>commit the changes, and then using the the Virtual Disk Assistant (under
>>the 'Window' menu) in VPC to select the image and use the function
>>'Reclaim unused disk space' to shrink the disk image (which is only
>>present when you have a dynamic image).
>
> You need to commit the changes FIRST, then defrag, then zero, then
> compact.
>
>
>>Alas, in my case, doing all these steps, does not change the size of my
>>disk image. Other solutions suggested were to use 'Ghost' to 'clone' to
>>a newly created, smaller disk image or use 'Partition Magic' to shrink
>>the size of the C-drive. But how this would be done in practice, was
>>left unclear.
>
> I can't even count the number of times I've posted the steps on the
> newsgroups for using Ghost, its bascially the same as whats on
> Robert's site.
>
> 1. Create a new drive image
> 2. mount it as a hard disk 2
> 3. boot the VM from a floppy/floppy image and run ghost
> 4. image from drive 1 to drive 2
> 5. shut down
> 6. mount drive image 2 as hard disk 1, and leave drive 1 unmounted
> 7. boot up and verify everything works
> 8. delete old drive image 1
>
> Using partition magic to resize your partition still won't reduce the
> actual size of the image file.
> Steve Jain, Microsoft MVP for Virtual PC for Windows
> Website: http://www.essjae.com
> *** All posts are provided AS-IS, no warranty, no QoS ***