Unable to Compress / Compact virtual hard disk

I can't boot safe mode or safe mode to command prompt either.

Sounds like I'll be re-installing the windows operating system yet again.

Thanks for trying to help me. I wish parallels support was here like you were.

Bob
 
hey bob did you ever get past the boot problem or just give up and do a fresh install? just curious, do you use share apps / folders / profile at all?
 
Merging snapshots (step 14) is taking forever... should i keep going?

So i've followed the excellent advice from Celtic tech, and it all seems to work... apart from the fact that the merging snapshots has been now running for 97 hours!! and it is still counting... if i examine the process it seems to be doing stuff; data read 64.4 GB, data written 47.55 GB. This is probably a silly question, but will it keep on going until it has written as much as it has read? the read count hasn't been going much up since yesterday, but the written keeps creeping up, s- l - - o -- w - l - y .... And this is not even compressing the disk yet!!!

I wouldn't want to give up, but i am worried of my poor macbooks health now, as it is boiling how and has been running fans at maximum for four days. Has anyone else have it take this long, and was it worth it? What about the actual compression stage, will that take as long?

Very grateful for advice!
 
i found my 38GB VM ended up writing ~6TB..

after compression it was down to a little over 12GB. but a few weeks later it was back up to 18GB. i've stopped using it since then or i'm sure it'd be back up to 20-something.

if i had to do it over again, i would not. did not seem to improve performance of anything and took my VM out of commission for 2.5 days.
 
HELP!!! Merging snapshots for 125 hours and still going on!!! can i stop it????

So, my macbook still struggling with the step #14; slowly creeping up and i am getting so fed up...
I think Tonycarreon you're right, this is not worth it!!!!
Can i stop the process or will it destroy my VM if i do so? I am so bored of this and wish i never started the damned thing, now am just afraid i will have to install the whole VM again if i stop it. The "cancel" option is not available on the "processing file..." window (interestingly, the progress bar has been at full for two days now...)

Will this ever stop? :o( Parallels, any comments?

system: MacBook3,1 Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz Memory: 4 GB
System Version: Mac OS X 10.5.5 (9F33)
Parallels Desktop Build 3, 5608.0

Merging snapshots (step 14) is taking forever... should i keep going? So i've followed the excellent advice from Celtic tech, and it all seems to work... apart from the fact that the merging snapshots has been now running for 97 hours!! and it is still counting... if i examine the process it seems to be doing stuff; data read 64.4 GB, data written 47.55 GB. This is probably a silly question, but will it keep on going until it has written as much as it has read? the read count hasn't been going much up since yesterday, but the written keeps creeping up, s- l - - o -- w - l - y .... And this is not even compressing the disk yet!!!

I wouldn't want to give up, but i am worried of my poor macbooks health now, as it is boiling how and has been running fans at maximum for four days. Has anyone else have it take this long, and was it worth it? What about the actual compression stage, will that take as long?

Very grateful for advice!
Click to expand...
 
honestly if it were me i would have stopped it a long time ago. i can't stand hearing my fans running, always makes me worry about what's going on inside. and for them to be running for so long full tilt ---

well anyway you should be able to stop if there's a cancel / stop button. if not then you might be SOL.

you can always restart the computer and hope for the best.

of course what good is a nice compressed VM if your computer burns itself up in the process?
 
Yeah, you're right. I should just stop it.
SJust being silly here and still waiting for a comment from Parallels (Please, is there anyone out there??)
and wishing some miracle would happen and it would finish and all be OK . . the cancel button is not available, so i would have to just force quit or restart. I *really* would not want to install my VM again, if i absolutely didn't have to, and i guess there's no chance for it surviving if i just quit now..

Does this problem still persist in build 4.0? I was thinking of upgrading, but the current instinct is to throw the machine out of the window, and Parallels with it. I can't afford to spend my working hours with reinstalling the damn windows and all the programs if something like this keeps happening.. :o(
 
yeah if the cancel button is not available then chances are the vm's hdd will be toast if you kill it.

if it's cold outside, maybe open a window and put a fan on it. :)

what's the "Data Written" in activity monitor -> disk activity up to? anything else running on the computer you can stop - idvd, imovie...?

also, macbook or macbook pro? and you said the progress bar is 100% but it's not "finished" yet?
 
GOod point - am doing everything possible here to keep the poor macbook from boiling, i actually have it by the window and cold air blowing on it :o) Fans on maximum, but at least it is not boiling hot to touch. - just a regular MacBook; almost nothing else running on it now, except for firefox, Pages & Mail for the real work i'm trying to do without the VM.

Data read 67.52 GB, written 53.47 GB now, both creeping up but the written about twice as fast as read.
And yes, progress bar has been in 100% for two days, but still not finished.. this is what still kept me hopeful yesterday - - that maybe the progress bar had something to do with actual progress.. :oP
 
i seem to remember my progress bar sitting at 100% for a little while, but since the whole thing took a couple of days from start to finish ( on the iMac ), "a little while" is relative. i want to say maybe a half hour to a full hour. i'm doing it in P4 now and i started it 10 minutes ago and it's already well past 1/2 way (again on the iMac) so maybe it's faster in the parallels 4.0 (maybe they got something right).

the only thing that makes me wonder is the amount of data written - for me it was huge, 6TB. but maybe mine was anomalous.

i just know i hate it when my poor macbook fans spin up while watching a youtube video. i'd be panicked by now. you're obviously way more level headed than i am.

**edit**
now it's done. took 20 minutes...=\
 
Last edited:
Hi,

I completed step # 15 (merging snapshots by Parallels Image Tool). But the restart of the VM takes now ca. 30 hrs. I restarted the VM in meanwhile, but since 20 hrs now, I see only a black screen. Parallels is occupying 1 CPU to 100%.

Please advise - thanks !


Kind regards, Bernd
 
Stop virtual machine, and right click on pvm (VM file)- show package contents, delete files with mem and sav extension
if it doesn't help. login to safe mode, and delete in Device manager Video adapter, restart VM reinstall Parallels Tools
 
Disk Compression Update

I've been following CelticTech's directions for disk compression in the earlier post. I'm up to step #14 and the process has been running for 24 hours. The disk size is ~54GB.

Is this normal? Will I do damage to the virtual disk if I quit the process? Any feedback or alternate methods of compression would be greatly appreciated. I have the virtual disk backed up, but I'll lose a few days worth of work if I have to abandon this process.

Thanks in advance.
 
Compression Update

Tony,

Thanks for the feedback. I have a MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz, 3GB RAM, OS 10.5.6. I'm going on 28 hours now. Is there a way to check to see if this is actually working? The computer is running close to 100% CPU and the fan is running non-stop.

I'm falling behind in my work as I don't have access to booting WinXP in the VM. This is incredibly frustrating.

Thanks again for the feedback and future advice.

Mike
 
what version of parallels? i was on 3 when i did mine so i don't know if 4 is any faster (hah!) but i would expect another day - day and a half of the vm being unavailable.

you can stop it at any time. i stopped mine a few times because i got tired of waiting, but it starts over again. however you can check the size at any time even while it's compressing, it should be shrinking.

if you have access to another machine i would do the compression / backup on that, but then you're stuck trying to merge the files on two VMs when it's all said and done. 100% cpu usage is what mine was pegged at for the whole time. it's a time (and hard drive) intensive task.

i've learned my lesson. i don't compress my VMs any more.
 
I'm working in version 3.0 build 5608. Thanks again for your insight. Much appreciated. If this continues for much longer I'm going to have to stop it and try to get some work done.

Mike
 
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