still missing Hd space

[mpack]

I still think VB must tell the OS to "reserve" x amount of space for fixed disks

Why do you think that? As a programmer myself I am not aware of any mechanism provided by any host OS to do something like that - other than of course the usual and banal method of creating a file to occupy the space.

Which programming language, or which API on which host, offers the feature you mention?

It's also worth pointing out that as a portable application VirtualBox will not typically take advantage of unusual mechanisms offered by a single host OS.

[loukingjr]

it's also worth pointing out that there are a number of issues/problems with the OSX version of VirtualBox. But I may have found the problem. maybe.

[loukingjr]

Hi

After running the uninstall script and removing the virtualbox folder in /Users/"username"/Library , Im still missing the hard drive space that I allocated for virtualbox.
When running omnidisksweeper it tells me that there is 105 GB of files on my disk, but the system tells me I only got 35 GB free on a 250 GB hard drive, the 100 GB that I used for virtual box is still being held hostage some how!!!

Does anybody know how to free them??



Mac os 10.8.2, was running VirtualBox 4.2.6

If you have Time Machine enabled it creates invisible backup files to the local drive if your backup drive isn't available. It may have created a backup of the .vdi file. To disable local backups you can run " sudo tmutil disablelocal" in the Terminal. That might work.

Also, you can run OmniSweeper as root and find more files. Run "sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper" in the terminal. You have to modify the line if you have OmniSweeper located in a different directory.

[RJW1979]

Any luck locating those files?

Look at my thread and see if that helps?

[olle]

Hi

Big thanks to loukingjr for all the efforts and suggestion to solve this, much appreciated!!
In the end I solved it by simply re-formating the drive and reinstalling everything from backup.

[loukingjr]

Hi

Big thanks to loukingjr for all the efforts and suggestion to solve this, much appreciated!!
In the end I solved it by simply re-formating the drive and reinstalling everything from backup.

you're welcome.

[nmiller]

VirtualBox no longer stores it's vdi's in /Users/<username/Library/VirtualBox, they are now stored in /Users/<username>/VirtualBox VMs, unless you've located .vdis in the Library directory due to earlier installations.

Assuming that directory was deleted, I'd have to go with the idea, that if it's a portable Mac (desktops don't turn this on), Time Machine creating the "invisible" backup files (actually just files that begin with "."). I know of no method that VBox could allocate "invisible" reserved space for disk images that would not be recovered by normal file deletion methods. In fact, creating a raw disk image (and still, the result is not a hidden file) is a rather convoluted process in OS X that a user new to VBox would not trip over by accident.

[gramps909]

Screen Shot 2013-02-12 at 9.30.46 PM.jpg (66.81 KiB) Viewed 4024 times

I too am having a problem with missing hard drive space after running VB uninstall. Having a hard time understanding why I can still see large areas of the drive using Internet Explorer still. Is there no proper way to uninstall? The hard drive is now almost completely full and I need to clear some drive space. Not technically schooled so use plain language please.

Using Grand Perspective I see the following

.IEVMS which is I believe is invisible contains these files.

IE9 - Win7-disk1.vmdk
IE9 - Win7.ova
IE9_Win7.zip
lsar/Users/davewallis/Desktop/Screen Shot 2013-02-12 at 9.30.46 Pg
Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.2.vbox-extpack
unar
unar1.5.zip
which gobble up 16GB for the first three files and 23 MB for the last four files.

There is a second location for IE9 - Win7-disk1.vmdk gobbling up 11.18 Gb of space on the drive.
There are two different locations for IE9_Win7.zip archive which gobbles up 5 GB. each.

These show up in Grand Perspective but are invisible under ordinary circumstances. So I'd like to know how to delete these properly and not corrupt my hard drive.

[loukingjr]

So I'd like to know how to delete these properly and not corrupt my hard drive.

since you can see the folder the files are in there doesn't seem to be any reason you can't right click on the folder and select "Move To Trash" then empty the trash.

[rpmurray]

What loukingjr said.

VirtualBox on OS X does not create invisible folders to put the VMs in, but OS X Lion or Mountain Lion do hide the Library folder where the VMs are stored by default. Apple does not use the .(dot) naming convention for the Library folder so I'm wondering if something else is at work here. Do you have any software installed that does an auto-backup of your hard drive? There was a user a while back that was using rsync to do auto-backups and whenever that process was interrupted it would leave invisible copies of the backup files chewing up disk space on the computer.

[gramps909]

I have not connected to the external hard drive to do Time Machine backups since installing VB. I am not aware of any internal backup software on my computer.

I am mainly concerned with not corrupting the drive and wasting a lot of time replication the files I have now. And freeing up drive space. Hopefully there won't be bits and pieces of information here and there left to cause problems down the road with things like the directory or file system.

I am not a tech so I am saying more than I know about. corrupting the drive.

If I can simply delete the invisible files without repercussions. I can do that.

[rpmurray]

Based on the screenshot you provided the .ievms folder does not appear to contain anything critical for your computer.

IE9 - Win7-disk1.vmdk
IE9 - Win7.ova
IE9_Win7.zip

the above seem to be VM files in various stages. The Oracle_VM extpack is a file containing the VB extension pack. lsar and unar are command-line tools for unarchiving files.

Assuming that you don't want VB on your computer anymore, or any VMs you may have created, you can delete the .ievms folder and it's contents. The VB uninstall tool just deleted the application and it's drivers, it doesn't remove any VMs you have created, so these files may be them, even though they're not where VB normally stores them.

[gramps909]

OK, thanks much for the help. I'l try VB again when I upgrade computers and allocate my HD space better than I have currently done.

[mpack]

it doesn't remove any VMs you have created, so these files may be them, even though they're not where VB normally stores them.

They don't look like files created by VirtualBox. They look like someone has downloaded a VMWare image from somewhere, imported it into VirtualBox, then forgot that the originals existed.