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            <h1>Compact VirtualBox VM .vdi Disk Size</h1>
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          <p><em>NOTE: This process only works on dynamically allocated virtual disks. If you&#39;re not sure, launch VirtualBox and go to File &gt; Virtual Media Manager. Select the virtual drive and view the properties</em></p>

<p>Create backups of virtual disks before attempting these steps</p>

<h2>Compacting Windows Guest VM</h2>

<ol>
	<li>Launch the Windows VM</li>
	<li>Inside the VM, launch a web browser and download the sdelete utility <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443" target="_blank">Download</a></li>
	<li>Extract the downloaded sdelete .zip file</li>
	<li>Copy sdelete.exe for 32-bit OS or sdelete64.exe for 64-bit OS to the C:\Windows directory</li>
	<li>Launch Command Prompt by right clicking the Start button &gt; Run &gt; type cmd &gt; Press Enter</li>
	<li>Run the following command to zero out the free space on the disk, replace the drive letter to target additional drives
	<div class="codeBlock">sdelete64.exe c: -z</div>
	</li>
	<li>Once the process completes, shutdown the VM</li>
</ol>

<h2>Compacting Linux Guest VM</h2>

<ol>
	<li>Download the SystemRescue live disc <a href="https://www.system-rescue.org/Download/" target="_blank">Download</a></li>
	<li>Launch VirtualBox Manager</li>
	<li>Right click the VM to be compacted &gt; Settings</li>
	<li>Select Storage on the left hand side</li>
	<li>Select the optical disc drive</li>
	<li>Click the disk selection icon &gt; Choose a disk file...</li>
	<li>Navigate to the downloaded SystemRescue .iso file</li>
	<li>Click Open and OK to close the settings</li>
	<li>Right click the VM &gt; Start &gt; Normal Start</li>
	<li>Press Enter to boot SystemRescue using default options</li>
	<li>Once SystemRescue has finished booting, run the following commands
	<div class="codeBlock"># list the attached disks<br />
	fdisk -l<br />
	# find the disk to be compacted<br />
	# usually listed as /dev/mapper/....<br />
	# run the following, replacing the drive identifier as needed<br />
	zerofree -v /dev/mapper/<br />
	# after zerofree completes, shutdown the VM<br />
	shutdown now</div>
	</li>
	<li>Go back into the VM settings and remove the attached SystemRescue .iso</li>
</ol>

<h2>Compacting the Virtual Disk</h2>

<ol>
	<li>Launch VirtualBox Manager on the host device</li>
	<li>Right click the VM to be compacted &gt; Show in Explorer</li>
	<li>Right click in the white space &gt; Open PowerShell window here...</li>
	<li>Run the following command, replacing the file name of the virtual disk
	<div class="codeBlock">&quot;%programfiles%\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe&quot; modifymedium disk &quot;name_of_disk.vdi&quot; --compact</div>
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