Thank you one and all. Now I think I understand it. I was hoping that I could
somehow shrink the VHD file more than what I have using the steps outlined
elsewhere, but I can see what I have is as good as it gets. The C: drive in
the XP guest says it's using 10.7GB and the VHD file is 11.9GB after
shrinking (it was 16GB). In order to reduce the VHD file more, I'd have to
delete apps and/or data and then go through the shrink process again. I just
thought I was missing something trick, but I'm not. Thanks again!
Jonathan
"Bo Berglund" wrote:
Quote:
> On Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:37:03 -0800, JonathanL
> <JonathanL@xxxxxx> wrote: Quote:
> >
> >"C.Joseph Drayton" wrote:
> > Quote:
> >> JonathanL wrote:
> >> > I'm not talking about shrinking the size of the VHD file, I know how to do
> >> > that. What I want to know is if there is a way to reduce the size of the hard
> >> > drive created inside a VPC. I'm running XP Pro in a VPC and I have a lot of
> >> > extra hard drive space. I want to reduce the size of the HD from a 60 GB hard
> >> > drive to a 30GB HD. I'm sure once that's done I could shrink the VHD but
> >> > right now the VHD is shrunk as much as it will shrink using the established
> >> > methods.
> >> > This would be like shrinking the size of a HD on a physical machine. Is
> >> > there any way to do it without just starting over and creating a new VHD with
> >> > a smaller HD size and reinstalling XP and apps into it all over again?
> >>
> >> Hi Jonathan,
> >>
> >> As far as I know, the only way to do it is to create the
> >> 'smaller' VHD, then use an application like Ghost to do a
> >> image copy from the original VHD to the new VHD.
> >>
> >> Sincerely,
> >> C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T
> >>
> Quote:
> >I looks like that's what I'm going to need to do. I probably don't understand
> >VM technology as well as I need to. When I created the new VM and installed
> >XP, I told it to partition and create a HD of 60GB. Now I see this was way
> >too big and not needed.
>
> Wrong conclusion! See below.
> Quote:
> >
> >If I created another VM, installed XP, and during the install told it to
> >partition or create a HD of 30GB, would the resulting VHD file be any smaller
> >than the one I have with the 60GB HD? Or does that not make any difference,
> >and the only thing that actually affects the size of the VHD file is all of
> >the apps and data that you install in the guest OS of the VHD?
> >
> >Jonathan
>
> If you used the defaults when you created the virtual machine you
> would have gotten a "dynamically expanding" type of VHD for your disk
> data. What this means is that it is internally configured for 60 Gb
> *max* storage of guest data, but the VHD file itself is initially very
> small.
> When you install the operating system in the guest the VHD file
> expands in size to accommodate the extra data to store.
> As you then work on your guest machine and add yet more data and
> applications the VHD file expands on the host file system.
> But all the time when you check the drive from within the guest it
> will be reportted as a 60 Gb hard disk, which is only utilized at a
> low percentage.
>
> As you may now understand there is absolutely no reason to do what you
> are asking here. It will not benefit you at all!
> If you make a dynamically expanding drive of 30 Gb the VHD file will
> initially be exactly the same size as a 60Gb VHD would be. After you
> have installed the operating system they will still be the same size.
> The only difference is that once you approach 30 Gb of data the
> smaller VHD will max out and you *must* migrate to a bigger drive,
> whereas the 60Gb drive is only half full. But in both cases the VHD
> file on the host is the same size....
>
> --
>
> Bo Berglund (Sweden)
>