Using a Mac app (WhatSize.app) I examined the structure of the .hdd file on my MacBook for the guest OS installation which is WinXp. I was surprised to see the different components comprising the .hdd file and their respective sizes. The structure can be see here: http://screencast.com/t/U8KZV2rNQWX. My question is why so many components, how did they get there; and are they all required? I am trying recover hard drive space on the Mac side of the equation. I used the plain file format for the guest OS installation which I now see was a big mistake. I was under the mistaken assumption that when you specify a hard drive size during creation of the guest OS that hard drive size would be identical from both the perspective of the VM and the Mac OS sides. Shame on you Parallels for not making it clear that this might not necessarily be the case. Thanks, Mike
