VM asking for more space during Windows Re-install

[mpcajc3454]

I am using VM Fusion 7.1.3 and trying to re-install a clean version of Windows 8.1 and then upgrade to Windows 10. The VM suspended itself when Windows was 25% into resetting because it said I needed to give 15.9 MB more storage. Is there anything I can do at this point without completely disrupting the Windows install?

[wila]

Hi,

Welcome at the VMware communities forum.

Sounds like the disk in your host that your virtual machine lives on is running out of disk space.

By default your virtual machine disk grows by the amount of disk space needed within the guest OS.

This might be more if you are using snapshots.

So try to make more disk space available and then you should be able to resume the guest and let the installation continue.

If you are having trouble to identify where all the disk space went, use a tool like Grand Perspective to identify these areas.

If there's nothing you can delete temporarily move some big files to an external disk.

--

Wil

[mpcajc3454]

Wil, thanks so much for taking the time to respond. I did see where it would allow me to delete a snapshot which would probably temporarily free up enough space to finish the install. I just didn't know if that would screw things up. It looked like I could not change the disc settings until I could resume the install.

[wila]

Hi,

While in theory deleting a snapshot is a good idea to make more space available, the problem is that in order to actually commit that snapshot it again needs at least several free gigabytes to do so. Deleting a snapshot a disk space constraint system is "a bad idea", chances of disk corruption are possible so I would advice against that and try to find more free space in another area.

edit: BTW, it is best to not keep snapshots open on virtual machines that you value the data from. Snapshots are a great feature, but they also increase the risk on disk corruption and they have an impact on performance. So yes do use them, but don't forget to commit them once you are sure that you got what you need.

A scenario where I keep snapshots open for longer time are on virtual machines I use for testing.

Certainly do not use snapshots as a "backup" because they are not backups (at all).

--

Wil