Just a quick question regarding adding and removing guest OS

Kyuubi · Post by **Kyuubi** » 30. Sep 2008, 01:46

I've search around and I believe I found my answer already but I like to \go on the side of caution and ask anyways because I'm new to this software. I read in one thread that I can delete the vdi file with the guest OS and I could recover th space that was taken up, and I wanted to ask if this was as well workable when it came to removing the guest OS??

In other words say I run linux on a vista host, and I want to remove linux, I could simply delete the vdi file correct?

ETA (EDIT): I also noticed that when I removed a virtual machine the free space on my hard drive was reduced significantly from 298 gb free (after making a fixed drive) to 285 GB after I deleted the Guest OS file. Would this be the memory leak issue I've been reading about?

luvit · Post by **luvit** » 30. Sep 2008, 03:59

that is the correct way to delete a guest VM

the memory leak is something else. it keeps claiming memory, but does not release it back to the host... over a short period of time everything moves to a crawl because there is eventually no memory left that should have been reclaimed.

before i fixed the memory leak i had issues to where i just had to power off the host and reboot several times before i searched for a memory leak patch on this board.

Post by **mpack** » 30. Sep 2008, 13:14

luvit wrote: the memory leak is something else. it keeps claiming memory, but does not release it back to the host...

I think the OP was referring to disk space, not RAM use, so I don't think the memory leak bug is the issue here.

I'd suggest emptying the recycle bin?

Kyuubi · Post by **Kyuubi** » 30. Sep 2008, 15:29

mpack wrote:
luvit wrote: the memory leak is something else. it keeps claiming memory, but does not release it back to the host...
I think the OP was referring to disk space, not RAM use, so I don't think the memory leak bug is the issue here.

I'd suggest emptying the recycle bin?

I've deleted a lot of stuff regained some space on the hard drive but not the 10gb I dedicated to the guest OS file, when I used Ccleaner to permanently delete it from the recycle bin it seemed to make it worse, I lost about 15 GB rather than gained 10 back, and I'm stumped as to how it happened :s

I'm not sure if that issue is separate or linked to the virtual box, if it was separate then I only noticed it now...

Post by **Sasquatch** » 30. Sep 2008, 23:06

You can try the Disk Cleanup tool found in Accessories of the Start Menu. After you ran that, defrag your hard drive and see if you gained any space. Hard disk space should not be taken after you remove some files.

Kyuubi · Post by **Kyuubi** » 3. Oct 2008, 21:57

Well I ran chkdsk and it froze this morning turned off the computer and it complained about corrupted files and then I ran chkdsk yet again, started backing up files (copying) and suddenly my HDD space jumped from 301 GB to 370...

And it stopped complaining about the file corruption....

For the record most of the files I started backing up were on a separate partition, which did not have these issues, the main C:/ drive had over 150 GB taken by "something" but the files I were backing were not part of it.

I-I-I just don't know what the hell to say about it, but apparently it's got little to do with virtualbox, if anything I noticed the problem when I used it.... So I apologize for bringing that up as one of the issues I had. I'm thankful I didn't immediately blame the software for it. Thank you guys for answering my main question regarding the removal of the virtual machine. I appreciate it.