Virtual disk recovery [was: Virtualbox: expanding the size of a virtual disk]

[Bart Silverstrim]

David Armour wrote:

> Before upgrading to Hardy a couple of weeks back, I was using both 
> Virtualbox and VMWare (server) to take a look at various distributions 
> (LinuxMint, DreamLinux, Hardy-beta, etc.)
> 
> Since the up-grade, however, only VirtualBox shows up on the 
> Applications/System Tools listing, and I initially read that Hardy was 
> missing a couple of components [paraphrasing] that VMWare needed. Since 
> then, I've found one way to (re-)install VMWare on Hardy: 
> 
> [http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2008/05/03/install-vmware-server-105-on-ubuntu-804-hardy/]
> 
> But because I definitely no longer need the space for the Hardy-beta 
> trial, I still want that hard-drive space back! And since each virtual 
> install typically allocates a default 8Gb, the potentially recoverable 
> hard drive real estate remains non-trivial. A related issue involves 
> recovery of allocated space for which I can no longer remember the 
> passwords!
> 
> Googling variations of 'reclaim partition space vmware server ubuntu 
> hardy' has come up mostly dry. Using a partition editor, e.g. GParted, 
> makes my trepidation meter go crazy. And merely deleting .vmdk files 
> *doesn't* seem to add space to the available remaining 82 of the 160Gb.
> 
> As always, any recommendations greatly appreciated.

A) I've been downloading and installing the latest beta of VMWare server 
from Vmware.  It uninstalls the old Vmware and the betas have been 
working for me on my Hardy install, but be aware that it is very 
different in interface from the previous versions...this one is web-based.

B) If you want the space back, just delete the folder in which you had 
the virtual machine and you'll reclaim your hard drive space.  The 
default install area was something like /var/lib/vmware/Virtual 
Machines, under that were individual directories for each VM.

-Bart