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I can't reduce the size of my XP hard disk image in Parallels 3.0
I have a persistent problem with my Guest OS hanging because my Mac OS runs out of enough hard disk space. I have a 100GB macbook. The only thing I keep in Parallels are the actual Office apps, to manipulate documents and to use Outlook for Blackberry synching. All document files and email are stored on the Mac side.
The Parallels disk image is 47.5GB. I need to get some of that back for the Mac side. I tried to compact the disk and was told:
"The virtual hard disk /Users/christine/Documents/Parallels/Microsoft Windows XP/winxp.hdd cannot be compacted. To compact the disk make sure that the virtual machine has the Undo disks option disabled and the disk is not connected to a virtual machine with snapshots. Plain disks cannot be compacted."
Undo is unchecked. I have deleted all of my snapshots (which makes me uneasy, but I did it anyway.) Still can't get it to compact. HELP!!!! I am angry that my hard disk is being wasted and I can't get it back. What gives?
The Parallels disk image is 47.5GB. I need to get some of that back for the Mac side. I tried to compact the disk and was told:
"The virtual hard disk /Users/christine/Documents/Parallels/Microsoft Windows XP/winxp.hdd cannot be compacted. To compact the disk make sure that the virtual machine has the Undo disks option disabled and the disk is not connected to a virtual machine with snapshots. Plain disks cannot be compacted."
Undo is unchecked. I have deleted all of my snapshots (which makes me uneasy, but I did it anyway.) Still can't get it to compact. HELP!!!! I am angry that my hard disk is being wasted and I can't get it back. What gives?
I’m very frustrated
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Inappropriate?OK, after some ridiculous digging around I have the answer:
1. Close Parallels.
2. Go to the Parallels application folder and launch the Image Tool.
3. Select your Guest OS hard disk (.hdd) file.
4. Choose to Merge Snapshots on this .hdd, no other changes. This will take a long time.
5. Once it's done, go to your Parallels folder and delete any snapshot files, including the .xml or any snapshots folder.
6. Start Parallels. Under Actions, choose Run Parallels Compressor and follow the prompts.
This took me about 12 hours to do from start to finish, there is a lot of processing time involved. But it freed up about 39 GB of unused hard disk space!
I’m glad it works, but annoyed at process
2 people say
this solves the problem
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Inappropriate?Thanks so much for this! I was having the same problem and this helps me a ton.
I’m soooo thankful
1 person says
this solves the problem
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Inappropriate?On my system the merging option was not available, however I was able to increase my harddrive, the problem is that microsoft in parallels doesnt read the increase!
HELP
I’m confused
1 Comment Add a comment
This solves the problem
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HI kor,
You need to get another tool inside windows that will allow you to expand the C: drive from inside windows. I just found this out today! Bleh! -
Inappropriate?thanks Christine, the fix above cured a very annoying problem with runaway disk image size that I could not fix. I wasn't even using snapshots although I remember experimenting with it ways ago. now my image size is sensible again!
I’m thankful
1 person says
this solves the problem
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Inappropriate?This has released 28 GB that I couldn't access on my MBP - thanks so much for posting the solution!
I’m thankful
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Inappropriate?This was very useful, thank you. (went from 20+ to 9GB — for the wee MB Air I needed to copy the virtual machine to, all the difference in the world!)
The same information with a little more description can be found here:
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread...
