vmware 10 hard disk space required

[PLCman7]

I have vmware workstation version 10, and my guest operating system took up about 50 GB on my host hard drive after installing my application software.

Now it's at 110 GB and I haven't loaded anything new onto it.

I ran "Clean up disks", but that didn't reduce the size.

Are there files on my host computer, in the directory for my guest machine, that are no longer needed that I can delete to reduce the size, or will the size of my guest machine continue to grow on my host even though I'm not adding anything to it?

Thanks

[HuanguoZhong]

Thanks for using VMware Workstation. It's better not remove the files from the your virtual machine directory manually. I think you can login guest to remove the files not needed, then power off guest and do "Clean up disk". And you can remove the snapshots from Snapshot Manager to save some space.

[PLCman7]

I don't have any files that I can delete within the virtual machine.

I'm running software on it, and I store all my data on my host computer.

This hasn't changed in months but yet the amount of space on my host hard drive continues to grow.

When I click on "Clean up Disk", it says that the amount of space used by this machine is 40Gb.

If I click on properties of the virtual machine directory in Explorer, it now shows 120Gb.

There must be many files that can be deleted manually from my host, but I don't know what they are.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[a_p_]

To start with, please provide a list of files in the VM's folder (with file names/extensions, sizes and time stamps), and attach the VM's vmware.log file as well as its .vmx file - which can be found in the VM's folder - to a reply post.

André

[PLCman7]

I have 1,510 files in my VM's folder for that guest.  Not sure how to list all those files for you.

I've attached a screen shot of the files.

Let me know how I should list the 1,510 file names w/ extensions, sizes and time stamps.

I've also attached the Vmware.log file and the vmx file.

Thanks

[PLCman7]

I meant to say "I've attached a screen shot of the first few files".

[a_p_]

Your virtual machine currently has 7 active snapshots, which explains the disk space usage. Once you create a snapshot, the current virtual disk files are treated as read-only, and a new delta disk (i.e. a new set of .vmdk files, which will store all subsequent disk writes) is created. In order to free up disk space you'll need to delete snapshots from the Snapshot Manager.

André

[PLCman7]

Snapshot manager shows that I only have two snapshots.

Every time I have deleted a snap shot in the past, however, I've received an error message while it's "cleaning up deleted files" that says "read beyond the end of object".

How do I avoid getting this error and how do I clean up all the snapshots that have been left behind that don't show up in snapshot manager?

See attached.

Thanks

[a_p_]

It looks like there's some corruption in one (or more) of the .vmdk files' metadata!?

What I would suggest - assuming you do have sufficient free disk space - is to go ahead ant try to clone the VM/virtual disk, which will also consolidate all the snapshots.

You can try to create a full clone of the VM from the VMware Workstation GUI, and if this doesn't work you may try to clone the virtual disk from the command line, using the vmware-vdiskmanager command line tool. The command to clone the virtual disk is:

vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -r RockwellWin7-000006.vmdk -t 1 RockwellWin7-Clone.vmdk

where "RockwellWin7-000006.vmdk" is the .vmdk file which shows up in the VM's .vmx file. If cloning the virtual disk succeeds, change the virtual disk's file name in the .vmx file to the cloned virtual disk's name ("RockwellWin7-Clone.vmdk"). Make sure you do this with VMware Workstation, or at least the VM's tab closed, so that the configuration is re-read after editing the .vmx file.

In case this doesn't solve the issue, it will be necessary to check the .vmdk files' metadata. To do this, download dsfok.zip from http://faq.sanbarrow.com/index.php?action=artikel&cat=47&id=111&artlang=en, extract the executables, run the below mentioned command in the VM's folder, then compress/zip all the "xxx-....bin" files along with the *.vmdk descriptor files (the small ones without "sNNN" in their names), and attach the .zip archive to a reply post.

for %i in (*-s???.vmdk) do @dsfo.exe "%i" 0 327680 "xxx-%~ni.bin"

In addition to the .zip archive, run dir *.* /one > filelist.txt in the VM's folder, and attach the filelist.txt file to the reply post too. This information is required to have the exact file sizes.

André

[PLCman7]

I only have a 200GB hard drive, so I don't have space to clone this virtual machine.

I tried cloning to an external hard drive but I got an error that I'm guessing is because I tried to clone to an external drive.

Is there a way to clone to an external drive?

Thanks

[a_p_]

What exact error did you get?

It shouldn't matter whether you clone to an internal or external disk. Simply specify the destination path, e.g.:

vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -r RockwellWin7-000006.vmdk -t 1 F:\MyClone\RockwellWin7-Clone.vmdk

André

[PLCman7]

The error is attached.

I got this error when trying to clone from the VM/Manage tab within Workstation.

I didn't try the .exe file yet from the command prompt.

If I open the .vmx file with Notepad, I see a file about 1/3 of the way down named "RockwellWin7-000007.vmdk".

So, I should use this in my command statement with a different name for the clone, correct?

Thanks

[a_p_]

Yes, the .vmdk file in the VM's configuration (.vmx) file is the latest one in the snapshot chain, and should be used to clone the VM's current state.

André

[PLCman7]

I moved my guest machine to C:\vm\Win7 so the shortcut would be smaller when typing at the dos prompt.

I got an error similar to the one I got when trying to clone the machine from Workstation.

Please see attached and comment.

Thanks

[a_p_]

Just to confirm (although the error message should be different in this case), does the target folder/directory already exist?

If nothing else helps, we might need proceed with "Plan B":

In case this doesn't solve the issue, it will be necessary to check the .vmdk files' metadata. To do this, download dsfok.zip from http://faq.sanbarrow.com/index.php?action=artikel&cat=47&id=111&artlang=en, extract the executables, run the below mentioned command in the VM's folder, then compress/zip all the "xxx-....bin" files along with the *.vmdk descriptor files (the small ones without "sNNN" in their names), and attach the .zip archive to a reply post.

for %i in (*-s???.vmdk) do @dsfo.exe "%i" 0 327680 "xxx-%~ni.bin"

In addition to the .zip archive, run dir *.* /one > filelist.txt in the VM's folder, and attach the filelist.txt file to the reply post too. This information is required to have the exact file sizes.

André

[PLCman7]

Note that in my previous attachment I included a view of the target folder from Windows Explorer.

All the files that you requested are attached for "Plan B".

Thanks

[a_p_]

After reviewing the file list it looks like something went badly wrong with "RockwellWin7-000002-s021.vmdk". The maximum file size can only be ~2GB, but it has a size of 7.795.638.272 (~7.26GB). I also checked its metadata, and it reports "Offset xxx exceeds EOF" for more then 1,000 grain table entries.

What you may do - after backing up the VM's files - is to replace "RockwellWin7-000002-s021.vmdk" with a clean, "empty" .vmdk file (e.g. a copy of "RockwellWin7-000002-s022.vmdk"). This may cause some data corruption/loss depending on the "real" changes, so you should run chkdsk c: /f for the guest OS partition. However, prior to running chkdsk, try to backup important files from the guest OS.

André

[PLCman7]

But how do I remove all the old snapshots that are causing my guest to consume 125GB on my hard drive?

[a_p_]

After replacing the file (assuming that's the only issue) you should be able to clone the VM, or its virtual disk. Please try to clone the VM and let me know how/if it works.

André

[PLCman7]

I still get the same error messages when trying to clone from VM or from command prompt.

Error is similar to "One of the parameters supplied is invalid."