Virtual disk sizing

How to shrink a VHD file:

This can be done, but its a little bit of a process. I would make a copy of the current VHD file that you have and make sure that you closed it out (DONT SAVE STATE)

The reason why your VHD file is so large is because your windows partition was 80GB.
So, we first need to fix that problem first by shrinking the partition.

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Resize Partition

1. Download GParted from the following site:
      http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828
      (this was tested on the 0.3.4-11 version)
      (You could also use something like Partition Magic - but I went the free route)

2. See the following on how to resize the partition when GParted comes up.
      http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/resize/resizing.htm (general instructions - Virtual PC 2007 instructions below)

3. To get Gparted to come up in Virtual PC I had to boot with the "Force VESA driver"

4. Also, while in there, I was unable to move the mouse so I had to [TAB] through the menus. So, TAB through to select the hard drive, then press enter, TAB to the size, manually enter the size you want - apply change. Then tab up to the top menu and select apply

5. I had a little trouble getting the exit button to work (somebody who knows linux could probably figure this out) but - I just unmounted the cd and closed the VM.

That takes care of the partition size in Windows. Now, we need to shrink your vhd file
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Shrink your vhd file

1. Download the VHD Resizer from the following site: http://vmtoolkit.com/files/folders/converters/entry87.aspx

2. Install this and then run it. Select the VHD file that you want to resize.

3. Select the destination file.

4. You will see a min/max size in GB down at the bottom - make sure that you select MB. (I had to set my value to 1MB over the Min to get it to work)

5. Then wait... it will take a while to convert. Close out VHD Resizer

6. On VM Restart, Check disk came up when I rebooted but, didnt find any issues.

7. It will also prompt you that a new HD was found in Windows - and that a reboot is needed. Reboot and you are done!
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Let me know how it goes.

As far as the not being able to run a VM of the same system on itself, I am sure there is some type of driver / SID / registry conflict.

There might also be an issue of running Virtual PC/Server inside Virtual PC/Server.