Mac Forum / Applications / Virtual PC / January 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Greg: I have been using Erasure for a couple of years. I believe you
either had a corrupted install doc OR, there is a problem w. erasure
and your VPC 7. Also, 7 GB is a LOT of used space. My W2K is about 2.5
GB... using Office 2000, Framemaker 6.0, and the rest of W2K's stuff.
Do you have a lot of data files stored on your Windows' drive?

Did you follow ALL the steps in installing Erasure?   It runs fine on
my Windows2000/VPC 6.1.1.

You failed to mention which VPC and which Guest you were trying this
on.

Just in case, here are the steps you need to follow to use eraser:
=======================================================

Date: Tue, Nov 11, 2003 10:39 PM
Message-ID:  cf2 < ul f9e3rvkgvorgt3t6at5i0oc0k01s5bv64f@4ax.com ulnone

Issue:  Windows guest OS image file is much larger than the amount of
used space indicated inside the Windows guest OS.

Solution:  When Windows installs, it copies a large number of
temporary files during the installation that are deleted when the
installation is finished.  These copied temporary files cause the
guest OS image to be expanded.  Virtual PC includes a utility to
compact the drive image.  In Virtual PC for Macintosh it's the Virtual
Disk Assistant and in Windows, it is the Virtual Disk Wizard.

Before the Virtual Disk Assistant/Wizard can compact a drive image,
the unused space in the image must be zeroed out.  This procedure uses
the utility Eraser, other zeroing utilities should also work.

This procedure is for Windows 95, 98, NT 4, XP, and 2000 guest
operating
systems.

1.    Defragment the guest OS hard drive.
2.    Backup any critical data in the guest OS.
3.    Download Eraser, (http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/) and install
it in the guest OS.
4.    Run Eraser in the guest OS.
5.    Select Edit->Preferences->Erasing
6.    Select "Unused Disk Space"
7.    Select "New"
8.    Enter the description "Blank"
9.    Select Add
10.    Create a 1-byte pattern of all zeros; THEN repeat for Byte 2 & 3.
11.    Click Save
12.    Select "Blank" under "Unused disk space"
13.    Click Ok
14.    Select File->New Task
15.    Select "Unused space on drive"
16.    Select Local Hard Drives
17.    Click OK
18.    Select Task->run on the previously created task
19.    Wait for completion
20.    Close the report
21.    Exit Eraser and shutdown the guest PC.
22.    Use Virtual Disk Assistant/Wizard on the Host PC to reclaim
lost space
============================================================
Cheers, Jim B