Disk Reported Full When It Is Not

[guitarpat10]

I am not quite sure if this is a problem on the Linux side or the guest OS side, so feel free to move.

Anyways, I have an Ubuntu 9.04 host and a Windows Vista guest. I went through all the steps of creating a new VM, and the Vista install went perfectly until the very end. When it was "Preparing your desktop", I got an error from VirtualBox that said "Host system reported disk full. VM execution is suspended. You can resume after freeing some space". I am almost positive that my disk is not full, as it is a 30 GB partition and I doubt that a basic Vista install takes up 30 GB of space. So, is it a problem because the disk I created is dynamically expanding or what?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

[Perryg]

A common mistake is to select the dynamic and leave it at the suggested amount. Recreate the VM and tell it dynamic but change the reported amount to 20gig. More if you plan to store things on the guest.

[guitarpat10]

Well, when I look at my Virtual Media Manager, I'm pretty sure I didn't leave it at the default size -- it says the virtual size is 30 GBs and the actual size is 5.27 GBs. Is there anything else I missed?

[guitarpat10]

Sorry, stupid mistake. Problem solved. Feel free to delete.

[pstahle]

Hi,

Was wondering what the mistake was since I am suffering from something similar? I have Vista 64 installed as a client on a Fedora 10 host. My disk size is 20gb and windows is reporting that all but 1gb is used. Yet if I select everything inside the C Drive it is reporting that only a bit more then 8gb is being used, and I can't figure out what has happened to the other 12gb that should be free.... Any suggestions on what is going on would be helpful. I also have a win7 img and it is reporting the proper size....


Thanks,
Patrick

[baf]

Take ownership of the super hidden folder "System Volume Information" in your root dir and see how big that is.

[vbox4me2]

System restore snapshots can also silently eat away diskspace.

[baf]

Vbox4me2 that's the place I just described..

[pstahle]

I turned that off the restore feature already, the "System Volumn Information" has 0 files and 0 size. So that is not it. See if I select everything in the C: and right click and do properties the size is 7.85GB not 19.9gb that Computer reports the C drive at. If I had to guess it looks to me like there is something big that is not in the master table taking up all that room Thus I can't see it nor can select it. Going to do a chkdsk to see if that comes up with anything..... If anyone else can think of something let me know....

thx,
Patrick

[baf]

Try opening that "System Volumn Information" folder and see if you can get into it. I think you still have things there that you can't see.

[D0M1N8R]

Im also having this problem which started Sunday I think
Im using 2003 server (32 bit) as host. I have expandable 40GB virtual drive on virtual box. The host has a 20GB drive but only contains fresh install of 2003 with 9GB free and VirtualBox files/machines are stored on NAS hosted on 2008 server with about 400GB free.
I do have read/write access and have confirmed by copying random files over then deleting them.

Posted here since search results that best fit my issue was here.. I'll report in windows section

[D0M1N8R]

Fat32 share.. Feel a bit dumb for not even thinking of that 4GB limitation. Converting to ntfs now.

[pstahle]

Hi,

After giving myself permission to "System Volumn Information" folder along with SPP folder inside "System Volumn Information" there is only 1 file in there of the size of 20k (tracking log). So if windows is telling me the truth it isn't the issue.... Any other ideas?

Thx,
Patrick

[Sasquatch]

Instead of selecting all files/folders on the root of the file system, get the properties of the drive itself. That will include all hidden and system files, including the system pagefile for virtual memory (when the physical RAM runs out, Windows uses this file to expand the memory need). Also, if you have Hibernate enabled, that will be of the same size of the RAM you put available for the Guest (giving the OS 1 GB, will get you a 1 GB file pagefile.sys).

[pstahle]

That is just it. If I do properties on the drive itself it reports over 19gig used. If I select all the files (I have view hidden files turned on) it is 8gig. The big question is what is taking up extra 11 gig, and how do I find out what that is. We are talking about a lot of space here 60% going to something I can't see what it is. I also have a windows 7 img and that image is not doing this. The disk usage on the properties of the disk pretty much match what the contents are set at which is around 8 gig. I do not recall ever seeing this behavior before.....