Mac Forum / Applications / Virtual PC / July 2006

Configuration:
Win2000 in VPC6 in an iMac.
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I followed Steve Jain's modified procedure (see ***, below) as closely as I
could in order to reduce the size of a virtual machine after defragging.
Nevertheless, the size of the virtual machine remained the same at 8.7 GB.
Worse still, after I used the "compacted" virtual machine, the size grew to
16 GB.

Below, I summarize what happened step by step (as Steve's procedure differs
a little from what happens in my system configuration):

1. As a backup, copy the virtual machine as found in the "Virtual PC List"
folder.
2. Download precompactor.zip from Steve Jain's website (www.essjae.com) and
extract it in the guest OS.
3. Defragment the guest OS hard drive.
4. Run precompactor in the guest OS.
5. Exit precompactor and shutdown the guest PC.
6. At this point the size of my virtual machine (in the Virtual PC List"
folder) is 8.71 GB - i.e. it is way too big.
7. Use Virtual Disk Assistant on the Mac to reclaim lost space. Start
VDA
8. Follow on screen steps
9. Select "Examine or modify existing disk image" and click right arrow
10. Select "Select a hard drive image attached to a PC" and click right
arrow
   I have only one disk image - so there are no options in this step
11. Select "Reclaim zeroed drive space
   Now the file characteristics are shown:
   - File Type:        Virtual PC Hard Disk Image
   - Disk Type:        Dynamically Expanding
   - Format Type:    FAT32
   - Disk Capacity:    16.0 GB
12. Click right arrow to start the process.
When finished, click Close.

Because the above procedure did not shrink the size of the virtual machine,
I started all over again, and this time in step #7 I selected "Convert to
fixed size drive".
However, the VDA did not ask me what size I wanted the new drive to be, and
the end result was the same as before, i.e. the size of the resulting
compacted virtual machine was 8.7 GB.

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*** Here is Steve Jain's modified procedure:

"This is my original procedure modified for precompactor.exe

1. Backup any critical data in the guest OS.
2. Download precompactor.zip from my website and extract it the guest
OS. Alternative disk 'zeroing' software can also be used.
3. Defragment the guest OS hard drive.
4. Run precompactor in the guest OS.

steps 5-20 were detailed steps for configuring Eraser correctly

21. Exit precompactor and shutdown the guest PC.
22. Use Virtual Disk Assistant on the Mac to reclaim lost space. Start
VDA
23. Follow on screen steps
24. Select Examine or modify existing disk and click Next.
25. Click Browse to locate the disk image, double-click the image file
and click Next to continue.
26. Select Compact the Disk image and click Next.
27. Virtual PC allows the use of a secondary file to compact the disk.
It's a good idea to have the image file be compacted to a new file and
then verified to prevent data loss or corruption of the original image
file. Select New File, browse or enter a new location, click Next to
continue.
28. Click Finish to start the process.
When finished, click Close."