Created VHD for temporary Vista installation - space not recovered.
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Sunday, June 10, 2012 7:57 PM
I needed something from Windows Vista, so rather than sacrifice a working OS on another computer, I created a Virtual PC with a dynamically expanding disk for Vista. I installed Vista in VPC and partitioned 20 GB (20480 MB). I had 127 GB (shown in Vista's partition interface) on the drive before creating the virtual disk, but after I had created it and installed Vista, I was down 52 GB instead of 20.
When I finished with it and deleted the VHD from the appdata path, I didn't recover really any of the disk space it took up (I only have 81.3 GB on the drive now; 45 GB less than I should have).
I do not want to have to reinstall Windows 7 just to get my space back. I had to reinstall just recently because a Microsoft remote technician completely nuked my current system by ripping out Internet Exlorer 8 and had no way of installing it back (IE8 installer not compatible with IE-less Windows 7?).
I would really appreciate insight into where the space has gone. I cannot find anything large enough with WinDirStat to show where the space has gone. It's essentially MIA.
All Replies
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Monday, June 11, 2012 12:09 AM
Once you delete the VHD, the space should come back. Were you using Undo disks? Did you empty your Recycle Bin?
Also, where did you create a partition, on the host? There's zero need for partitioning if you're using virtual machines.
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Monday, June 11, 2012 3:34 AM
Once you delete the VHD, the space should come back. Were you using Undo disks? Did you empty your Recycle Bin?
Also, where did you create a partition, on the host? There's zero need for partitioning if you're using virtual machines.
No, I don't believe I was using the Undo Disks option, as long as it's disabled by default. I never enabled it myself. Yes, I emptied Recycle Bin.
I created the partition on the host during the Vista installer, where it used the available free space from my C: drive.
Perhaps I did not need to create a partition - however, if I created a partition on a VHD, it shouldn't matter because it's a VHD. ;) There are no additional logical partitions on the drive.
The space is missing and there is seemly no explaination for where it's gone - and not just what i partitioned, but much, much more than that. As I said, I created 20 GB and it took 52 GB after it installed. 20 + Vista Installation is less than 30 - so where did the rest of it go? ;)
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Monday, June 11, 2012 5:41 AM
I have no idea. You are the only person who can see what is on your hard drive. I very much doubt that it has anything to do with Virtual PC. If you have deleted the .vhd file, there really isn't anywhere else where the vm could have written any data. If you created a partition during the Vista install it would have been on the .VHD, not directly on your hard drive (and it will now no longer exist).
Bill
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Monday, June 11, 2012 8:26 AM
Ok, so it's unlikely that the VM you created used the 20GB partition on the host, since you say it needed 52GB. Not possible to have 52GB in a 20GB partition. To me, it seems that you created a partition, but then installed the VM in a VHD created in the default location under your user profile.
When you created the VM, where did you specify the VHD to be placed?
Have you deleted all the files from the Vista VM? If not, do you still have the .vmc file? That file has the location of the VHD used by the VM.
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Monday, June 11, 2012 10:16 AM
It's not that it needed 52 GB. I had 127 GB on the drive and after making the partition during the Vista installation and installing Vista, I had just 75 GB left on the drive. The difference in space is 52 GB. I recovered the space required for Vista itself only when removing the VHD and I'm still down 45 GB.
And I didn't specificy the location per se - the VHD was created in the default <user>/appdata/microsoft/virtual pc/ and all VHD/VMC files and references were removed manually afterwards.
What baffles my mind is, I removed all VPC created data that I know of, emptied the Recycle Bin and deleted all restore points and shadows copies. There is just no explanation for where the space went.. I wasn't downloading or copying/moving data to the drive or doing anything with that drive in particular between the time I installed Vista to the time I deleted it.
- Edited by Elite PCs Monday, June 11, 2012 11:12 AM
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Monday, June 11, 2012 5:18 PMWhen you create a dynamically expanding vhd of 127GB capacity it only uses the space on the host hard drive that is actually needed for data. If Vista required, say 10GB, then only 10GB of space is used on the host. When you delete the .vhd you recover 10GB of space, not 127GB, because only 10GB was in use. Although the .vhd capacity was 127GB as viewed from within Vista, 127GB was not in use as viewed from the host.
Colin Barnhorst Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on DIY with 6GB ram.
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Monday, June 11, 2012 6:49 PM
When you create a dynamically expanding vhd of 127GB capacity it only uses the space on the host hard drive that is actually needed for data. If Vista required, say 10GB, then only 10GB of space is used on the host. When you delete the .vhd you recover 10GB of space, not 127GB, because only 10GB was in use. Although the .vhd capacity was 127GB as viewed from within Vista, 127GB was not in use as viewed from the host.
Colin Barnhorst Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on DIY with 6GB ram.
The 127 GB was the total free to partition - I only partitioned 20 GB, but my actual amount of space that was 127 GB was down to 75 GB after the installation. So we're not even talking about 20 GB + 8 GB at most for the partition and if VPC installed Vista outside of that partition. Almost twice as much space disappeared than what is logically possible. haha.
At any rate, I work over 100 hours a week and I've spent all the time I can spend on this for now. I will just have to deal with it later when I have time to format the drive and reinstall to gain the space back. If I don't gain the space back, I will in the very least know something else unknown was the cause of my disk space magic trick. Now you see it.. *poof* now you don't. haha. :)
Thank you for your help as well as the other people who responded. :)
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Tuesday, June 12, 2012 9:57 AMModerator
Hi,
Based on my knowledge, please try the following:
1. Delete files using Disk Cleanup.2. Check your disk space in Disk Management and post a screenshot here.
3. Double check all your file size in your system. Specially, please note the files with abnormal large size.
Hope this helps.
Jeremy Wu
TechNet Community Support
- Marked As Answer by Nicholas LiMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Wednesday, July 04, 2012 8:40 AM
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