[X4U] parallels hard drive

[K. Jerry Smith]

On Feb 14, 2008, at 12:10 PM, Nick Scalise wrote:

> ---- Mitchell Senft <ms53 at optonline.net> wrote:
>> Got Parallels pre-loaded on the MacBook. Now want -- need! -- to
>> reduce the partition to regain HD space. Parallels/Windows is used
>> essentially only for running a remote access app (PCAnywhere) to
>> access the PC at work. No other reason/need to run Windows.
>>
>> So the question simply (?) is this: How do I reduce the partition
>> alloted to Parallels and the Win guest OS? And yes, I tried the
>> support pages at Parallels; only showed how to expand it. Also  
>> emailed
>> TS; no real answer.
>
> Do you mean reduce the partition of the physical drive or reduce the  
> partition of the disk image?
>
> Parallels can boot from a disk image file or a disk partition.
>
> If it is from a disk image, you may not be able to reduce. If you  
> are booting from a physical disk partition, you should be able to  
> reduce the partition size from within DiskUtility. (10.5 only)


I run Parallels' virtual HD from an external Firewire 800 2.5-inch  
drive, which saves a bunch of space for me on my MacBook Pro.
Here are some basic instructions, if you want to give it a go . . .

Most likely your virtual machine is located in Documents - Parallels -
Microsoft Windows XP. Copy this folder to your external HDD. (Note that
I said copy, not move.)

Enter the virtual machine's folder. Press and hold down the Apple key on
your keyboard and run the .PVS file. When you see the summary screen,
release the Apple key. Click on "Hard Disk 1" Correct the path to the
.hdd file, so that you will open the file on your external hdd, not on
your Mac.

Click OK, and try running your virtual machine. It should run OK now.

A word of caution: if your external hard drive is formatted into FAT32,
files bigger than 4GB cannot fit on it. So, if your virtual machine is
bigger than that (or grows big enough in the process), the whole process
may not work.

It took a bit of trial and error, but all's well now. This setup runs  
as fast as when the HD was on the laptop's internal drive.

HTH,
Jerry in sunny SC