hard drive file too big

my windows is only using ~5gb but my hd file is 30gb. it was about 25 gig or so at one point, but those files have since been deleted. i tried compacting, didnt work. defragged and compacted again, no better

any suggestions?

 

How about compressing? Have you tried converting it to a flat file and then expanding it manually?

 

how do i do that?

also, shouldn't parallels take care of this on its own?

 

:-\ I dunno. Maybe in an ideal world it would... If the expanding nature is a big issue, use a plain sized disk and just expand it as you need more space.

 

Run the Virtual Machine, click Actions -> Run Parallels Compressor.