Unable to Compress / Compact virtual hard disk

All good until I start compressor

CelticTech.

Thanks for your post. I got through to starting Parallels Compressor from the Action menu. I do not receive a countdown, and there is no indication that compressor is running other than the Action menu item changes to Cancell Parallels Compressor. Is this normal? Does any one else experience a similar problem with compressor?
 
Thank you, CelticTech.

I followed your instruction, step by step, and all work OK (about 2.5 processing hours
on MBP C2D).
My winxp virtual machine drop from more than 16 GB to less than 9 GB.
 
Works now

Thanks. This process has resolved the issue and my image is now able to be compressed. Figured it was some sort of flag incorrectly sent wrt snapshots.

I also want to comment about folks issues with Parallels. I have found that between the forum regulars and the Parallels support folks most problems I've had have been answered to my satisfaction. I've been very pleased with Parallels and the amount of work put into it and it is well worth the price.

In terms of features, I think Parallels is ahead of Fusion. And, IMHO, it's Parallels that is driving the virtual landscape and not VMWare.
 
Still unable to compress my HDD file

CelticTech said:
OK after testing this and much research I finally have a sulotion that I know works so here it is.

First everyone upgrade to build 5160 you will need the image tool that comes with that build. next

To fix this Follow these steps...
Click to expand...

This did *not* solve the problem for me. Compression still halted "due to an unrecoverable error", during the second phase of the compression - after the restart.

Something is badly amiss, and I would gladly like to recover some of the disk space that Parallels keeps eating up as I use it.

Please advise

TH
 
tharpold said:
This did *not* solve the problem for me. Compression still halted "due to an unrecoverable error", during the second phase of the compression - after the restart.

Something is badly amiss, and I would gladly like to recover some of the disk space that Parallels keeps eating up as I use it.

Please advise

TH
Click to expand...

Same here!

I have tried it many times and it does the defrag and all but as soon as it shuts down the VM and OSX starts to compress, i instantly get the error.

I tried the VM Compressor and from the "Compress" button available in the HD's advanced options.

Any suggestions?
 
Moved the images to an external firewire drive. Told XP to check the disk before logging in. Then ran defrag.exe. Then, from the Mac side, I defragged the external firewire drive so there would be plenty of nice wide open free space for Parallels to play around in. Then I ran Parallels Tools disk compacting (build 5160) and it always gets about 90% done before the stupid "unrecoverable error" rears it's ugly head. I've never used snapshots or otherwise messed with the disk images.

Honestly, it's been since April when someone first posted this issue and all we've heard was the fix is coming "real soon now." That was July. I rely on my laptop to make a living - I cannot afford to have Parallels render it useless because it's incapable of shrinking images that are gorging on my Mac's hard drive.

With dual core support and the assumption that it doesn't eat hard drive like a frat boy at a hot dog eating contest VMWare's Fusion is starting to look attractive despite the inevitable pain of converting over.
 
I am not sure that your VM fits the same criteria that this fix addresses. I would need further more specific info about your Vm in order to determine the problem or the fix for it.
 
CelticTech said:
I am not sure that your VM fits the same criteria that this fix addresses. I would need further more specific info about your Vm in order to determine the problem or the fix for it.
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of criteria that were specified in relation to the "fix" proposed here. The only common thread seems to be that several -- perhaps many -- of us continue to be unable to compress the files used by our VMs, despite our following every instruction from Parallels tech support. "An unrecoverable error occurred" is not the clearest or most complete diagnosis of the underlying problem, nor a good guide to help us help you.

That there *is* a problem is clear, as too many users of Parallels have run into it -- and, I suspect, others are waiting to discover the problem on their machines, as soon as they try to compress their VMs. If you post to this list:

CelticTech said:
OK after testing this and much research I finally have a sulotion that I know works so here it is.... First everyone upgrade to build 5160 you will need the image tool that comes with that build. next...
Click to expand...

-- without explaining first what other "criteria" might apply to users for whom this solution does not work, then they can hardly be blamed for finding the solution faulty.

I very ook forward to learning how I might get my VM to work as advertised.
 
No kidding. There have been a whole bunch of threads on this same topic--all with nothing I would consider "support" from Parallels. I am still having the issue and am STILL waiting for a useful response from the Parallels team.

The problem is not going away. Just my disk space is.

PLEASE LOOK INTO THIS.
 
I have also had the 'unrecoverable error' problem. The fix that has worked for me (using version 5582) is to open the virtual drive in Parallels image tool, convert it to a fixed size disk....then convert it back again to a variable size disk.

I ran the first stage of the compactor within windows (XP), then ran the second stage while windows was still running. I didn't time it, but it took something like 1-2hr to reduce the disk size from 13GB to 6GB.

This fix is similar to others in the forums (e.g. using the disk image tool to add 1 GB to the size of the disk), but this may be the simplest way of doing it - at least it worked for me.
 
Michael UK said:
I have also had the 'unrecoverable error' problem. The fix that has worked for me (using version 5582) is to open the virtual drive in Parallels image tool, convert it to a fixed size disk....then convert it back again to a variable size disk...
Click to expand...

Wow. That did the trick -- thanks: I was able to reduce my Parallels image files by, on average, about 40%.

Now, ahem, why didn't SWSoft suggest something of the kind...?

TH
 
Compressor 'unrecoverable error' fix

Me too, v3 b5582, XP Sp2.

Thanks Michael, you 'da Man!

In my case switching formats didn't work but switching to fixed size and back did. I was only doing it for performance improvement (Mac Mini 1.66Ghz / 1GB RAM kinda weak).

VM hd was only 4.3 GB to start (in Mac Finder).
7.3 GB after switching to fixed size.
2.3 after switching back.
2.4 (?) after running compressor.
"7.8 GB with 4.5 GB free" in XP Explorer stayed the same the whole time.

Performance improvement noticeable, it's not too bad now.
 
29 hours and not half way done compressing?

I followed the Tech support instructions and was able to get compressor to work, but I do not understand why it is taking so long.

It has been running 29 hours on a 75 GB parallels image drive and it is not yet quite to half way.

How long is this going to take?

At the current rate it will take 60 hours to compress my drive!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I have a MacBook Pro with 2 Gigs Ram and plenty of disk space with a 2.4 Ghz processor running 10.4.11.

What gives?
 
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