[meadorg]

By default, the VPC 7 with Windws XP Pro installation routine created a 15GB dynamic disk file. After installing Windows and the 1 program I intend to use (Streets & Trips 2006), I have 11.5GB free space remaining on the dynamic drive (which is taking up 15 gigs on my real HD). I'm on an iBook with only 40GB hard disk space to begin with, so I want to reclaim that extra space.

I defragged inside Windows, and also ran a Windows app called Eraser to "zero" the empty space on the drive. Next, I went back to the Virtual PC app's Disk Manager and instructed it to "reclaim zeroed space" on the dynamic drive. I expected this to shrink the drive file's size to about 5GB. It didn't do anything.

Anyone know how to do this correctly?

I guess one alternative would be to create a new fixed size 5GB drive and install Windows XP into that, then delete the original dynamic drive ... is there any way to mirror the contents of the dynamic drive into a new fixed drive?

Or, if I just need to start over, how do I use the bundled Windows XP Pro files (part of the Virtual PC install discs) to install into a new fixed drive?

Thanks for any help.

[SoBayJake]

Are you sure you have a dynamically sized disk image? If so, it should NOT be taking up 15 GB of hard disk space if you only have Windows and 1 Application installed.

I have a dynamic disk image and I followed the same steps you did and it shrank mine by 2 or so GB.

When running VPC, open My Computer, and see how much space is used on the C: drive. If its 15 GB, then you can't shrink your disk image. If its less, try the steps again.

This is the steps I used: http://www.macwindows.com/VPC7.html#123004

The default for VPC *might* be to create a 15 GB fixed size disk...I'm not sure, since I had my own copy of XP from college, so I didn't let it do anything "automatically."

-Jake