I started the disk compacting tool on an 83GB VM, from which I have purged a ton of stuff - down to 43GB (this VM was imported from a real PC using Transporter). The process started and I could see the small window with a progress bar, but when I switched to a different Mac app, the Parallels window vanished completely. If I switch back to Parallels, the menu bar doesn't update and I still can't see the VM's window. Parallels is still running, however, and using anywhere from 15 to 90% CPU... Memory usage is moving around as well... It seems like it's still chugging away at the compacting task, but I can't know for sure since I have no window. Has anyone had this problem before? This is my first time using the compacting tool; how long can I expect the process to take? I'm willing to wait and let it run (mostly I'm afraid killing off Parallels might damage the VM and force me to start all over again) but how long should I wait before I assume that Parallels has left for la-la-land?
Hello Smeynard, To compact a transported VM you'd better do the following: Launch your Guest OS; Double-click the Parallels Tools Center icon in the system tray; Choose "Disk Compacting"; Enable "Execute all stages at once"; Click Start. The process can take a lot of time, up to 20 hours. I think you should quit Parallels in the situation you described. This is not supposed to damage the VM. It's difficult to say why you lost Parallels window - I personally have not heard of such issues before. Best regards, Xenos
Hi Xenos, thanks for responding. I found some posts in the forums where people were losing their window, so I guess I was just unlucky to get that at the same time I started a long operation. Anyway, after a few hours, the CPU stabilized at 15% and Parallels didn't seem to be doing much anymore, so I took a chance and restarted it. I went through the process again without any problems, and left step 2 running overnight. Don't know how long it took, but it was all done the next morning. Thanks!
Smeynard, thank you for the feedback. Glad to know you've finished disk compacting successfully. Best regards, Xenos
