How to downsize vdmk back to actual size after deleteing tons of movies

[vm_guy]

i am using my windows 10 as a virtual machine guest,

i had about 124GB worth of movies inside the virtual machine guest,
anyways they were old movies so i deleted them all,

my windows 10 vm guest hard drive is now 21GB

but the vmdk file is still 144GB

how can i make it smaller? it's taking up too much space
im on a linux host

[BillG]

Why are you using .vmdk format?

Are you also using a Windows host? I find the easiest way to do that is to use mpack's CloneVDI program with the Compact drive while copying option set.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22422

[vm_guy]

i am using vmdk because i heard with that format you can also use the vm in VMware

i can always convert to vdi easily, ive done it before using the following command:
VBoxManage clonehd "source.vmdk" "cloned.vdi" --format vdi


i am on a linux host, but virtualbox is also installed on my other desktop on a windows 10 host, so both i have access to

[mpack]

If you compact the vmdk with CloneVDI then conversion to VDI is done for you.

And btw: the container format means very little as regards portability, for example being VMDK doesn't mean that VMWare could run the VM. It does mean however that if you corrupt your VMDK then you're pretty much on your own.

[vm_guy]

after i changed the vdmk file to vdi i tried to resize it but it gave me some error, i forgot the error, i shouldve wrote it down, but it said i was allowed to resize it or something

but then i noticed the vdi file was 23GB, so it resized it for me during the clone i guess

anways i figured it out,



1. clone the vdmk to vdi
VBoxManage clonehd "old.vmdk" "new.vdi" --format vdi


2. remove the old hard drive(vdmk and add the new hard drive(vdi) in the settings of the vm machine
settings>storage>controller:SATA of the vm

then i booted and it worked, except the hard drive uuid change, but the machine uuid stayed the same,
does it matter?


seems to be working fine, no problems, my windows is still activated


saved a lot of space, so great

[BillG]

If you need to do this again any time, there is an option in CloneVDI to keep the same UUID for the virtual disk. The default setting for a clone operation is to give it a new one. You are not resizing the virtual disk, you are simply copying and compacting it.