Two Partitions - Cannot Shrink

[kleinfelter]

I can't get Fusion to shrink my Windows drives. 

I started with a real PC with 2 partitions on one physical disk.  I ran Converter and it created two drives in one non-preallocated VMDK file.  I deleted lots of files from both partitions, defragmented them in Windows.  I have over 100 gig of free space in each partition, but the Shrink process only reclaimed 20 GB.  My VMDK is much, much larger than the used space on my drives.

I'm *guessing* this is because I have 2 partitions on one physical disk, and VMware "thinks" it has to hold on to everything up through my last byte used in the second partition.

Is there something clever I can do to convert from a Windows guest with 2 partitions on one drive into 2 separate drives?

Is there some magic necessary in order to get two sparsely used partitions to shrink nicely?  Maybe I need to run it through Converter again and tell it to create a VMDK composed of many files instead of one big VMDK?

[kleinfelter]

Solved.  Whatever the reason, Fusion cannot shrink my file below 230 GB, but VMware Tools within the guest can.  I ran

• VMwareToolboxCmd.exe disk shrink D:\
• VMwareToolboxCmd.exe disk shrink C:\

and now my file is 80 GB.

So if Fusion (or maybe Workstation) cannot shrink your disk, it is worth trying to shrink it from within the guest.

[Mikero]

This is correct. We have a KB about it, tho it's specific for VMware Workstation (it's the same process and technology however)

Sorry for not noticing your post earlier!

Defragmenting and shrinking VMware Workstation virtual machine disks (2019649) | VMware KB