Will A Virtual Disk Convert Exclude Unused Partion?

[bittondb]

I have a vmdk with three partitions. The first is a small GPT reserved partion, then a 2nd part with my guest OS, and a third unformatted partition. I want to create a new vmdk with only the first two.. Currently the vmdk is taking up over 450GB and I'd like it only to be in the 250GB range. What to do? Thanks.

[rcardona2k]

As with a physical disk in the same situation you need a disk partition cloning utility like Symantec Ghost or Acronis TrueImage that understands how to move partitions. What you would do is add a second, new blank virtual disk, e.g. Virtual Machines > Settings > + > Add hard disk..., then use the bootable version of a disk imaging tool to perform a partition-to-disk copy followed by a partition-to-partition copy.

[bittondb]

Will GParted do the trick? Also, if I do an image copy, will that cause Vista not to boot and require a repair? Also, is that going to trigger another activation?

[rcardona2k]

I've only used GParted to resize NTFS filesystems on an MBR-formatted layout. I haven't used it on any GPT-formatted disks or to move partitions. I know earlier versions could not resize Vista installations (GPT). It's possible GParted could move the partition but then the resulting virtual disk is not bootable. I would test moving Vista first. You can boot off the Vista DVD and use fixmbr or fixboot commands in the recovery console if something goes wrong. I know newer versions of Ghost handle Vista and I expect TrueImage does too.

[bittondb]

I downloaded GParted-Clonezilla 2.3 and neither we at all helpful. GParted thought the drive was completely unallocated and while clonezilla read the partition table, it failed to copy data. Clonezilla made the suggestyion to us dd. I have no interest in using dd. Why is it that the shrink function in Fusion didn't reduce the size of the vmdk down to only the use bits. Doesn't seem all that useful if you ask me.

[rcardona2k]

The Shrink function zeroes out unallocated blocks and recovers the space of your virtual disk up to the last allocated block. I think for it to be maximally-effective you would have to defrag to the point that all your allocated blocks are coalesced to beginning of the virtual disk, then Shrink. You can use the out of the box defrag tool on the command line until it reports no more defrag is possible, e.g.

defrag c:

then shrink. Useful is as useful does.

[bittondb]

I did the defrag. In fact I did an super defrag with PerfectDisk 2008. This is how I was able to shrink the partition to almost half its size. I just installed Acronis TrueImage Home 11 and I'll try and image to the new vmdk I made. Let's see how this goes.