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i created a VDI file that works fine, with a max dynamic size of 50GB. i want to reduce that max-size to 25GB.

i have googled and searched the forum and found no way of doing this.

i tried creating another VDI file with the smaller max-size and then mounting both of these VDIs to a 3rd virtual-machine and using DD to copy/clone the data to the smaller virtual drive, but the new/smaller VDI would not boot.

so i'm stuck. any ideas, aside from creating a new VDI with the smaller max-size and then re-installing the OS from scratch?

DD will be useless as long as the partition info still says its a 50GB partition. Have you tried using gparted to reduce the partition size? Once that is done you should be able to move the partition to a smaller drive.

ps. It would help if you edited your profile to provide basic information, such as the guest OS your question refers to. Not all guests can easily have their partitions moved and resized.