Parallels 4.0 and Boot Camp

Before Parallels and Fusion were readily available (VirtualPC doesn't count!), I installed a copy of Windows via Boot Camp, to which I allocated an exorbitant amount of disk space 15GB, I'd like some of that space back, and as much as possible. Is there a way I can get Parallels to access the Boot Camp load of XP and erase the rest of the partition?
I think I know the answer to this question, but maybe someone as found a more satisfactory workaround.
Thanks in advance.

 

This is isn't doable via Parallels, the easiest way would be to back the partition up/clone using a tool like Winclone, run Boot camp assistant and reclaim all space back to OSX then run it again and set the new size you want, after that, restore the partition from the winclone backup.

But 15 GB is not too much for XP, considering that a normal XP installation with applications, updates, etc, easily takes up 5/6 GB, add the page file to it (the same size as your RAM, let's say you have 2 GB RAM), you also should have some free space in order to prevent heavy file and pagefile fragmentation (degrades performance), I wouldn't recommend anything less than 10 GB for Win XP (without taking user files into consideration). So 15 GB doesn't seem too much.

 

Thanks, and should I nix Boot Camp?

Thanks for the advice. Your initial suggestion seems like a fun thing to do (I'm kind of perverse that way!) But your other suggestion seems more sensible. I wasn't sure whether I'd allocated too much disk space to XP; we spend most of our time in X mode and occasionally (for work, or fun - I told you I was perverse), we go into XP mode.
But can I draw the implication from your reply that the better configuration for Parallels is to have it draw XP off the Boot Camp partition rather than have XP as a direct load through Parallels? I hope that makes sense!

 

Having the same XP under Bootcamp and Parallels is the most flexible solution available (it's what I have and recommend), you can boot XP under Parallels and run it alongside OS X or, to take full advantage of your hardware, boot directly in Boot Camp. In fact, in terms of disk access it might be faster to run XP in Parallels from a Boot Camp partition than to use a virtual disk. I only see positive things about this setup, the only downside is just that it occupies more disk space than an expanding virtual disk (but the same as a fixed sized virtual disk).

 

+1 with Specimen.

Some programs run better in Bootcamp because of hardware dependent features that can be modified with that install. Games for one, lol.

PD4 installs its own tools drivers during the full boot process so there are no (hopefully) draw backs to using the same install.

And when running from one installed version, there's no need to do file syncs or have unneeded space on the drive wasted.

Another plus is that even through all the installs and reinstalls I recently did to fine tune PD4, the data on my BootCamp install was always there. I see some issues where some who had a virtual install lost their data when a backup wasn't done and an install messed up. Going back and forth between PD3 and PD4 was not a big deal with BootCamp for the installed files seemed to be in addition to what both BootCamp and PD installed.

Just another opinion with HD prices so cheap for more data space. I use 30GB for my XP install and after I put in the new 320GB drive in my MBP, it's going up to 100GB. Just like any other real Windoze machine I have.

True virtual machines are great for other OS installs and a temporary XP or Vista experiment, IMHO. I'm glad it's an option. If there is a storage space issue that can't be solved by a new drive, then certainly a virtual install is called for.

 

Thanks to you both for your replies. I'll keep my configuration as is.