VMware 11 Compacting VMDK is not Working

[Anatol56]

Hi,
I Try the VMware Workstation 11 before i was using 10.04, so my host Systems are Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit and Windows 7 64-Bit so i install the new Version of VMware 11 on both systems and after i used view days i like to Compact an Guest OS witch was a Ubuntu 14.10 64-bit i user sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/0bits bs=20971520 # bs=20m
in the Guest OS to free unused diskspace and then delete the 0bits file with sudo rm /0bits.
the powerd off the VM and go to Options / Harddisk and use the Compact funktion after 5 Seconds it says the Disk was successfully compacted but when i watch on the size still was and will be 65GB so it does nothing!

So i check a cuople of things to get sure its not the Filesystem itself (i mean bad sectors on the Real Harddrive) but this is all ok no errrors where found and anything other works fine.
So i Uninstall the VMware 11 and Reinstall the 10.04 Version and again Compacting this VMDK and after doing it with Vmware 10.04 the size is only 3.6GB so in my Point i think theres a Problem with VMware 11.

Can anyone out there reproduce or got the same Problems?

By the way, i also try to Compact the disk on The Windows 7 Host with VMware 11 and 10 and its the same problem vmware 11 dose not working but vmware 10 Compacts fine.

Here are some Data about the system im Working on:

AMD 4x 3,6 GHz

8GB Ram

2 Hard drives 1. 500Gb for the Systems

and 2. 1TB As Data/Work Drive the Working Drive is Formatet on NTFS.
(I also try to shrink the VMDK on a Ext4 Partition and it is not Working! Only with the VMware Version 10.04 it still Compact the VMDK)

So in that Case Can you help me or tell me what im Doing wrong?

Greetz Anatol

[HuanguoZhong]

Thanks for using Workstation, I've reproduced this issue, and a bug has been opened to track it.

[stanleyh431 · Accepted solution]

I had same issue.

my VMDK is also growing up everyday and can not be shrunk in VMware 11.

I found a temporal solution.

Execute below command (My guest OS is ubuntu 14.04)

# fill '0' in all unused area

cat /dev/zero > fill

sync

rm fill

# execute vmware tool from guest OS,

# in my case, it should be installed in /usr/bin/

# I set location in my root '/' , all area will be shrunk

sudo vmware-toolbox-cmd disk shrinkonly /  

It worked well in my side.

You can try this way temporally.

Good Luck

Stanley

[Anatol56]

Thank you  HuanguoZhong for Report this and hopefully it will be Fixed quickly.

[Anatol56]

Thank you stanleyh431 this is also working in my case i dont know that befor.

Great that some People like you and HuanguoZhong in this Community!!!