[Solved] VDI almost full after resize

[VMFox]

Hey guys! I hadn't had enough space allocated for my VM, so I changed the size of it's only .vdi (dynamicly allocteted) via the following command:

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C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe modifymedium E:\vms\vmname\nameofmyvdifile.vdi --resize 200000

Then I merged the old and the newly available partitions to one. Host and Guest run Win7 Pro, btw.

Problem: Now the vdi is still almost full! The guest OS and Virtualbox both say it is 195 GB in size and the guest OS further claims that only 285 MB are free. The size of the vdi is 204 GB according to the host.
But if I check the sizes of files and folders on that drive it amounts to only 48 GB!
Failed attempts: Full CHKDSK two times, loads of online searches and checking on tutorials on recovering NTFS and VDI.
So far, no clue how in that could have happend and how I could try to fix it.

If anyone might be able to help me, I'd appreciate it.

PS: I try to avoid downtime, cause that VM is used in a network and runs on old hardware. That's why I haven't tried to clone the vdi yet.

[mpack]

Howto: Resize a Virtual Drive.

Pay particular attention to step 2, and what it has to say about using snapshots.

[VMFox]

Thx, mpack, but I did read that and I joined / extended the partition. Unfortunately I saw the lack of diskspace to late to simply use the backup. There are have been no snapshots either, tbw.

[VMFox]

Dammit, I found old snapshots within the vms folder. I thoght there haven't been any, virtualbox did not show any, as I recall, but that might have been a reason for it. Does anyone by any chance know a fix?

[mpack]

It doesn't matter how old they are, if snapshots are part of the VM then the latest snapshot is in fact your current disk and is what you should have resized. The FAQ discusses other solutions.

I'm a tad disturbed by the statement that these snapshots were "found in the folder". If the snapshots are not also listed in the snapshots panel in the VM settings then it implies that someone has been tampering with the .vbox file.

And just to avoid further confusion: snapshots are files with names such as "{12345678-12AB-xxxx.xxxx}.vdi". Files with a .sav extension are saved states, not snapshots. Saved states have been known to get left behind.

[VMFox]

Then I have correct myself, because there are only *.sav -files in the snapshot directory. So my memory did not betray me and neigther I or any one lese made snapshots. Thank you for mentioning saved states, mpack!
So the problem still exists and I am still clueless.

[mpack]

I think it's time that we saw a VM log. With the VM fully shut down, right click and "Show Log" in the GUI, save "VBox.log" (no other file) to a zip, and attach the zip here.

[VMFox]

Sorry, that I am late. Here comes the log file.

[mpack]

Well, the log says that your disk is 195GB (2000MB), hence there is nothing wrong at the VirtualBox end. Partition size is a guest OS filesystem matter (the FAQ however suggested solutions).

There is no sign of snapshots (or similar) being used, so we can forget that part of the discussion.

[VMFox]

Well, thank you for your time and effort, mpack. I've already checked for solutions for ntfs, but nothing worked. I'm going to set up a fresh system and migrate the data.

[mpack]

Moving this topic to "Windows Guests".

Can you show me a guest display showing ~200GB capacity and only ~285MB free? So far that has only been an assertion.

Let's be clear: if the guest says you have (200GB-285MB) on that drive then that's what you have, whether or not you can identify it all. Neither the guest OS nor VirtualBox can be mistaken on this. The free WizTree tool can tell you what the biggest space hogs are on a Windows drive.

[VMFox]

WizTree did the trick and showed 150GB+ in windows\... temp- and log-files. Curious that those have not shown up within the summary, but maybe I did that wrong. Probably.
So, I am sorry for my wrong assessment of the cause of it and for having bothered you. But in the end, even though this is not Virtualbox related, you have helped me alot, mpack. Thank you very very much! I can now look for the real cause of those overflowing temp and log folders.

[mpack]

I'm glad you found the problem.