Way to decrease maximum size of virtual disk in Fusion 2.04?

[jdskee]

Using VMware Fusion 2.0.4 under Mac OS X 10.5.7

MBP 15" 2.16Ghz, 3GB RAM, 120GB HD

I have Vista installed under Boot Camp, and decided to convert it to a file-based VM in Fusion using the built-in Import function. The actual conversion went very smoothly, no hiccups and the VM boots and seems to work fine. However...

When I look at the Settings page of the virtual hard disk for the new VM, the HD's maximum size is the format size of my actual, physical hard drive, and not the size of my Boot Camp partition. After searching, I came across this other thread which explains that the partition table from the physical disk (in this case, my Mac's hard drive) was also imported. That partition table of course contains information about my Mac HFS partition. While I can see why this is important in some situations, it doesn't make much sense in the particular instance of converting a Boot Camp installation to a file-based VM, as its doubtful that the new VM will ever need to deal with the former Mac OS partition info again.

I was able to successfully remove the old Mac partition using Paragon's Partition Manager, but Fusion just will not let me decrease the disk's size at all. Clean Up disk also didn't change anything.

For reference, my physical disk (with OS X and Boot Camp) was partitioned as follows:

Mac OS: 80GB

Boot Camp (Vista): 32gb

If there isn't a way to do this now, there should be in the future. The main reason why I imported the machine, aside from the fact that Aero broke when I installed VMware Tools, was to regain lost space inside my boot camp partition. Incidentally, I did get a message the first time I booted the imported VM that the disk structure was corrupt and Fusion could repair it. I clicked Yes to this and everything went fine. I imagine this was because Fusion was converting the GPT table to MBR format.

[DannoXYZ]

If you want to reclaim the space used by the BootCamp parttiion, you must back everything up and format the MacHD and partition it as one partition and copy everything back.

As it is, the actual amount of space used by your VIstaVM is just the minimum required to store the data anyway due to its sparse-provisioning. If the Vista BootCamp partition is using 20gb out of 40, the VM-drive in Vista will use 20gb out of 120gb. However.. the ACTUAL disk-space used on your MacHD will be 20gb only.

But if you must shrink the size of the virtual disk in your VistaVM, you can download and use the free VMwareConverter program to capture it and specify a disk-size during the process:

1. reboot into Vista from BootCamp partition

2. Download the free VMwareConverter and install it into your Vista environment

3. run VMwareConverter

4. at some point in the conversion, you get to select hard-drive size.

The minimum size is the point where the last piece of data is stored on the HD. Obviousy, if you defrag the drive before the conversion, you can pick a smaller minimum size. However, it won't affect how much actual disk-space is used on your MacHD because the total of the VMDKs will still be only the minimum needed to store the VistaVM (sparse provisioning). So regardless if you recapture Vista and make the drive only 30 or 40gb in size, it will still only use 20gb anyway.

Sorry for the rambling post, bottom line is, you won't save any space on your MacHD by making your VM's hard-drive smaller.

[jdskee]

I was hoping to avoid using Converter if possible, simply because it adds another step (copying the VM from the HD back to my internal HD). This wouldn't bother me so much if the virtual disk that Fusion created during the Import operation actually reflected the space that Vista was taking on my Boot Camp partition, which it does not. There is at least 6GB free space inside of that 32GB partition, but the size of the imported VM is the full 32GB, even after removing the HFS partition information and running shrink.

In other words, yes Im complaining because I expected it to be seamless Mac-style, not the stuff I have to do managing servers

[DannoXYZ]

Well, if you've got the VistaVM running as separate VMDKs, you can just format the BootCamp partition and create a 2nd HFS+ partition of 32gb. What is the total size of your VistaVM's .vmwarevm folder?

[jdskee]

Well, if you've got the VistaVM running as separate VMDKs, you can just format the BootCamp partition and create a 2nd HFS+ partition of 32gb.

True, but then I still have the problem of two separate rooms instead of one big room.

>What is the total size of your VistaVM's .vmwarevm folder?

just over 33gb in size. After I deleted the phantom HFS partition and ran disk cleanup, it went down by a few decimal points (if I recall it was 32.92). Unfortunately I can't give exact amounts since I deleted the imported VM to save space on my HD.