Compact VirtualBox VM .vdi Disk Size

#VirtualBox #VDI #Compact

Full steps can be found at https://i12bretro.github.io/tutorials/0395.html

NOTE: This process only works on dynamically allocated virtual disks. If you're not sure, launch VirtualBox and go to File ≫ Virtual Media Manager. Select the virtual drive and view the properties
 
Create backups of virtual disks before attempting these steps
 
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Compacting Windows Guest VM
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   01. Launch the Windows VM
   02. Inside the VM, launch a web browser and download the sdelete utility  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443
   03. Extract the downloaded sdelete .zip file
   04. Copy sdelete.exe for 32-bit OS or sdelete64.exe for 64-bit OS to the C:\Windows directory
   05. Launch Command Prompt by right clicking the Start button ≫ Run ≫ type cmd ≫ Press Enter
   06. Run the following command to zero out the free space on the disk, replace the drive letter to target additional drives
         sdelete64.exe c: -z
   07. Once the process completes, shutdown the VM
 
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Compacting Linux Guest VM
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   01. Download the SystemRescue live disc  https://www.system-rescue.org/Download/
   02. Launch VirtualBox Manager
   03. Right click the VM to be compacted ≫ Settings
   04. Select Storage on the left hand side
   05. Select the optical disc drive
   06. Click the disk selection icon ≫ Choose a disk file...
   07. Navigate to the downloaded SystemRescue .iso file
   08. Click Open and OK to close the settings
   09. Right click the VM ≫ Start ≫ Normal Start
   10. Press Enter to boot SystemRescue using default options
   11. Once SystemRescue has finished booting, run the following commands
         # list the attached disks
         fdisk -l
         # find the disk to be compacted
         # usually listed as /dev/mapper/....
         # run the following, replacing the drive identifier as needed
         zerofree -v /dev/mapper/
         # after zerofree completes, shutdown the VM
         shutdown now
   12. Go back into the VM settings and remove the attached SystemRescue .iso
 
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Compacting the Virtual Disk
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   01. Launch VirtualBox Manager on the host device
   02. Right click the VM to be compacted ≫ Show in Explorer
   03. Right click in the white space ≫ Open PowerShell window here...
   04. Run the following command, replacing the file name of the virtual disk
         "%programfiles%\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" modifymedium disk "name_of_disk.vdi" --compact
 


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