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Host disk is running out of room, can't shrink virtual hard disk?
Hi Everyone,
I have a challenge with resizing a virtual disk - here are a few details before I plunge into the challenge at hand;
1). The HOST O/S is Windows 7 x64
2). The GUEST O/S is Windows XP
3). The Desktop Virtualization software is VMware Workstation 8
Background - originally when I setup my XP Virtual Machine I allocated disk space during the setup. Later I discovered that I didn't have enough space on my Guest hard disk, so I did the following in VMware Workstation;
1). Selected Edit Virtual Machine Settings
2). Selected the Hard Disk
3). Clicked on the Utilities menu and selected Expand
4). Expanded the Virtual Machines Hard Disk to a size that would fit into my Hosts hard drive partition (leaving about 8 Gigs free for any later "tweaking")
5). Loaded my XP Guest
6). Inside the guest loaded Norton Partition Magic 8
7). Expanded the guest hard disk to take up all available space
Everything was running fine for a time, that is until I started seeing this message in my Host O/S -
I then looked in Windows Explorer and noticed that the partition I had set aside for my XP Guest was in the "Red" -
I attempted to compact the virtual disk through VMware Workstation and was met with the following -
I have managed to find the files which are causing my Host to run out of disk space -
I am not sure of what purpose these .vmem files serve, however I can delete them and the XP Guest will still load, however shortly after loading the .vmem files return, and once again my Host is out of available disk space.
If anybody knows how to permanently stop the .vmem files, or otherwise shrink a VMware Virtual Disk your input will be highly appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Davo