VPC Optimization questions

aluminum

Registered
I've been reading some of the recent VPC optimization tips. I have a couple of questions for anyone that has done the same:

(I'm going to run Win2K primarily on a G4/350 tower).

Second internal HD vs. External FW drive. It sounds like the biggest way to boost VPC speed it so move the disk image off of your OSX HD. I can either move it to another internal drive or throw it on my FW external. I'd rather do it on the internal (as the external is often off-site) but if it makes a huge difference...

Disk Zeroing Utility. I apparently need to run a utility on windows prior to running the VPC compress disk utility to shrink it significantly. I've seen mention of 'eraser' and 'cipher'. Any recommedations re: either one? I'm trying Eraser right now, and it's slow going. Will report back when that's finished.

Once it's zeroed, I can then use the RECLAIM ZEROED SPACE tool in VPC. However, VPC only is able to see disk images located within it's own drive list folder. Is there a way to run this tool if my image is on a different drive?
 
You can move the drive to that location in order to 'reclaim zeroed space', then move it back.
 
OK...new problem.

VPC is installed on my OSX partition (30gigs).

The VPC image is 11gigs. I have 8gigs free. Running the RECLAIMING ZEROED SPACE slowly eats up my scratch disk until the utility crashes.

Am I screwed or is there a way around this? Is there anyway to install VPC so that it doesn't require that the disk image exist on the boot partition?

Would the 'converting to fixed size' tool work?
 
nevermind on the fixed issue. I don't have enough HD space for that either.

It looks like I need to install OSX on a larger drive, install VPC, move my disk image over there, optimize it, then move everything back. Is that the only way? This is going to turn into an all night project methings. :(
 
OK, I *think* I might have solved the problem. It looks like if you launch your image from another drive, then shut it down, it will remain listed in your disk list until you quit VPC. If you run disk optimization at that point, it will use the HD that the image is on as the scratch disk. I'll report back if this works.
 
Well, the disk optimization worked in that it ran successfully, but my image is the same size as it was before. This is after I deleted 5 gigs worth of files on it and ran ERASER.

I think the problem is that ERASER isn't actually 'zeroing' the empty space, but writing over it with junk data, so it's the same amount of room. Can anyone recommend a 'disk zeroing/empty space recorvery tool' for windows that I can run prior to VPC's disk optimization?
 
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