Host system reported disk full. VM execution is suspended. You can resume after freeing some space.

[Emit]

Hi Have a virtualbox 6.1 running Ubuntu 20.04 on windows 10 host.

The vdi is dynamic size stored on a SSD ( which is 1TB)
The logical size of the VDI is 1.8TB.
I get following error when I run the virtualBox

""Host system reported disk full. VM execution is suspended. You can resume after freeing some space.""

My linux virtualmachine is only using around 350GB of data.

I am not sure why I see disk full.
Is it possible to reduce the logic size from 1.8TB to current SSD size ?
Please advise.

[scottgus1]

My linux virtualmachine is only using around 350GB of data.

The "host disk" is the 1TB SSD. Virtualbox thinks that disk is full and has no room to continue expanding the VM disk as needed. The 1TB SSD has to be cleared of some data to make space for the VM to start running again.

It is not possible to reduce the VM disk to smaller than the 1.8TB final size. However, you can edit the partitions inside the VM using a boot CD (Gparted?) or the VM OS's built-in partition editor, if it has one, to reduce the main partition to a smaller size. Then the VM's disk will not increase in size on the host disk (the 1TB SSD) beyond the total of all partitions inside the VM's disk (plus a few MB for overhead).

Also see How to resize a Virtual Drive

[Emit]

I tried to boot using the Gpartd live CD.
However, the VM does not allow me to run.
I get the same Host system reported disk full message.
At this point, I also can not boot Ubuntu in recover mode ( same error as above).

[scottgus1]

The "host disk" is the 1TB SSD. Virtualbox thinks that disk is full and has no room to continue expanding the VM disk as needed. The 1TB SSD has to be cleared of some data to make space for the VM to start running again.

[Emit]

Hi.
Thank you very much for your quick reply.
The problem is , I can not log into the Virtual box to clear the data.
The SSD has only 20 MB left apart from Ubuntu.vdi file.
Please see attached

[scottgus1]

So your 1TB SSD has only the VM disk on it, and the VM disk uses up the whole SSD...

That's not quite what was said here:

My linux virtualmachine is only using around 350GB of data.

I suppose this means the data inside the VM. The nearly-1-TB VM disk file that wants to increase to 1.8TB but is on the 1TB SSD is the cause of the error.

But we can proceed. If your VM disk has 350GB of good data in it, you can use Mpack's CloneVDI to clone the existing VM disk file, with the Compact and Keep UUID options chosen, to another disk file on another host drive. Then move the original disk file to another disk as backup, move the clone to the SSD, and you'll have 650GB of space available on the SSD.

Then go into the VM and reduce the size of that super-big partition down to something under 1TB. Then this won't happen again.

Or get a 2TB SSD.

[Emit]

Hi
Thanks for the quick reply.
I will follow up your suggestions and let you know the results.
Here is a snapshot of my linux machine settings.

Capture3.JPG (56.22 KiB) Viewed 4746 times

[scottgus1]

After you clone and replace that VM disk, chop off a large portion of /dev/sda. The total of the values in the Size column should be less than 891GB, the size reported for the SSD in your screenshot. (You might want to check if the Recycle Bin is blocking off a portion of the SSD, which is normal but can be disabled. A normal 1TB drive comes in at 931GB. You won't need recycle bin on the SSD, if the VM disk file is the only file on the SSD: the disk file would never fit into the recycle bin.)

SSDs also should not be filled up completely, so some blocks are available to be replaced & wear-leveled, unless the SSD has extra unreported blocks. Maybe you ought to cut down /dev/sda so the total of the Size column is less than 800GB-ish.