Unutilized HDD space after import from bootcamp

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by TedMacH, Oct 15, 2012.

  1. TedMacH

    TedMacH Bit poster

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    I am evaluating parallels as a replacement for vmware (which I find unreliable). I imported my win 7 bootcamp partition and then removed the partition (followed the instructions in user manual and linked KB articles).
    The original bootcamp partition was about 140GB of which less than half was actually used.
    So my pvm file says it's around 70 GB, which sounds about right. But I'm left apparently with the other 70 GB not being used or recognized by parallels and also not available to OS X.
    How do I get OS X to take back the rest of the free space? Parallels says nothing to reclaim.
    Running trial version of parallels desktop 8 on OS X 10.8.2. All software is current.
    Thanks
     
  2. YanaYana

    YanaYana

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    Not sure where those 70 gbs exactly are... In VM virtual hard drive?
    Or on the Mac hard drive?
     
  3. TedMacH

    TedMacH Bit poster

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    Thanks YanaYana for replying

    I'm not exactly sure about this. Here are some observations/facts/thoughts:
    - Get Info for Macintosh HD shows capacity 499.25 Available 206.02 Used 293.28
    - About this Mac / Storage shows the largest disk section as Other at 147.24
    - it also shows Audio (44.67), Movies(53.21), Photos(9.29), Apps(38.45), Backups(zero)
    - Get info for the [C] drive (the imported bootcamp drive) shows capacity 137.91 Available 88.32 Used 49.59
    - in Finder I locate the .pvm file in Users:Documents:parallels and show package contents. the Imported boot camp.hdd file size is 87.64.
    - in Disk Utility for the HDD on the Partition page it seems to show a single partition and the note: This is the startup partition. You can't erase it. But the Partition layout graphic shows the top 2/3 shaded blue and the bottom 1/3 as white. If I drag the white space up to the blue area, it shows the partition size at around 290 GB.

    - my hypothesis is that OS X is still treating the imported bootcamp partition as it was originally sized on the HDD (that would be the Other at 147.24, above). Parallels is seeing and using just the actual space that's used by my Windows files (so it shows nothing to be reclaimed).

    Does that answer your question about the 70 GBs?
    Any suggestions on how to resolve this?
     
  4. YanaYana

    YanaYana

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    uff))) such a challenge) I suggest you to do the following: Go to VM configuration --> Hardware --> Harddrive --> Compress

    On Mac : Open Disk Utility, Make sure Mac partitions occupies the whole hard disk space. If not - just drag the margin to the bottom and apply changes.
     
  5. TedMacH

    TedMacH Bit poster

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    Can't compress

    Thanks again for helping me with this.

    Did not get very far with the compressing. got message Hard disk 1 used by the vm cannot be compressed. The disk is either plain, or dynamic, or contains no data. Such disks cannot be compressed. Problem ID 498. I followed the link for the solution and deleted all the snapshots, but it made no difference.

    Couldn't do anything on the Mac HD either. There's a handle for dragging the white space on the partition, but that just reduces the size of the partition. No way to drag the startup partition (the blue part of the graphic?) in any direction.

    Any other suggestions? I sure hope I don't have to just write off the use of severals 10s of GBs on my drive!

    Thanks.
     
  6. YanaYana

    YanaYana

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