MidnightReign.org

NOTE: This is a technical article. While this is a fairly simple process, I'm not going to walk you through the basics of using a computer. Also – this is aimed at NTFS based images.

You've been messing about in your VM, installing and removing software, etc. Your disk space usage inside your machine says you've only used 3Gb of disk space, yet your actual image is much bigger. How do you fix it?

It's fairly simple to fix. First, you should probably remove all the unnecessary crap that you never use. There's a bunch of utilities out there that can help you with this.

Defrag your drive using your favourite defragger.

Now you will need one of two possible utilities (There may be more, but these are the ones I'm aware of):

• SDelete from http://www.sysinternals.com – this is a tiny 47kb executable.
• Precompact.iso – Obtained from Microsoft Virtual Server installation (May be available in other MS VM products)

Precompact.iso is MUCH easier to use. All you need to do is mount the ISO inside your VM, and it will prepare your disk for compaction.

SDelete is only marginally more difficult. Run it in a command prompt like so: SDelete -c C:
(or use whatever drive letter you want to compact). SDelete will write zeroes to the free space on your drive image. This allows compaction to take place properly.  Note – this is exactly what the Precompact.iso does, just without the fancy Windows GUI progress bar.

As soon as Precompact or SDelete is finished, shut down the VM.

Open command prompt on your host machine, and navigate to the folder where your hard disk images are located.

NOTE: It's probably MUCH easier to have the path to Virtual Box set in your PATH statement, otherwise you have to specify the full path to VBoxManage every time you use it.

In the command prompt, run:

Your disk image will now be compacted, and should end up quite a bit smaller than it was.
If you get an error about the disk image not being found blah blah, specify the FULL path to the image, like so:

NOTE: This is a technical article. While this is a fairly simple process, I'm not going to walk you through the basics of using a computer. Also – this is aimed at NTFS based images, but the basic principles should still work fine for other OS's.

Like a tool, and not thinking ahead, I created an XP Base dynamic image of max 10gb in size.  While this is usually enough space to mess around with things, I find it can be a pain in the backside when you want to install a sizeable program – say Visual Studio. While possible, you end up with very little disk space left over at the end of the day.

A possible solution to this dilemma would be to simply add a new disk to the machine, as needed. However, I like making things difficult for myself, so I rather wanted to resize the initial disk.  Unfortunately this is not possible with the provided VBoxManage utility. So, you need to jump through a few hoops, but it's really not that difficult.

You will need:

• Clonezilla – http://clonezilla.org
• GParted – http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/

Download the ISO versions – and for Clonezilla – DO NOT download the "Alternate" version, it will NOT work.

Using the Virtual Media Manager, create a new dynamic disk of your desired larger size. Call it whatever you like.
While you are there, add the CloneZilla and GParted iso's to the CD/DVD library.
Create a new VM, but do not attach any disks to it. Configure it as Linux, Debian. I called mine Clone Master.
Edit the VM settings, go to the Storage node, and add a new hard disk. Select your SOURCE disk (The disk  you want to enlarge). Add another hard disk, and select the DESTINATION disk (the big image you just created). Click the CD node, and select the clonezilla image. Boot the new VM.

The CloneZilla CD should now boot (If it doesn't, check the boot priority in your VM settings, and make sure CD is set to boot first).


Use the utility to do a local disk to disk clone. Using "beginner" mode is fine.  The "expert" mode has a setting to extend the partition to the size of the destination disk, but it didn't work for me at all – the cloned partition was the original size. Not sure if it's because of the NTFS partitions, or a bug in the version I was using. If it works for you then EXCELLENT – you won't need to do the GParted segment.
 

Once you have cloned the disk, power off the cloning VM, edit the settings, and detach the hard disks from it. Attach the newly cloned bigger image to your original VM, or create a new VM for it, and boot it. Check that the system works ok. If the partition hasn't grown to fill the new partition, you will need to continue to the next step.

Shut down the VM with the new large image.
Edit the settings of your cloning VM, set the CD to use the GParted iso, and attach the newly cloned image to the machine.
Boot the machine, and GParted should load. Just accept default settings, and eventually X-Windows will load with a copy of GParted. Click the extend button, and increase the partition to fill the disk. Apply the changes. It will only take a few seconds to completed. Exit the system, and shut down the VM. Edit the VM settings, and detach the disks (It's not strictly necessary – more of a safety measure).

Boot your previous VM to test the disk. All should be good.
 

Running Apple Software Updater (to get the latest version of iTunes), I noticed that Safari is now available for Windows. So, I decided to give it a bash. I mean, why not? I’m bored. :p

It’s cute. It’s got the typical Apple OSX style skin, but I don’t really understand the point. It doesn’t seem like there are any addons for it… like StumbleUpon (which I use quite a lot). Other than that, it seems like a pretty normal browser. Does tabbed browsing… what more do you need? I don’t see any particular compelling reason to use it, quite honestly. Firefox is more than adequate for my needs.

So I’m reloading XP on my workstation. It goes through it’s usual crap before running that stupid welcome wizard thing where you add usernames etc. All’s fine and well.  Anyway, while loading up drivers, I realised that I had failed to install my sound drivers off CD first before installing the updated drivers, so I was missing a lot of the cool applications (I have an SB Audigy 2 ZS). So I thought that, instead of uninstalling the drivers I had just put on and tainting windows by loading off the CD and then reapplying drivers yadda yadda, I would just reload Windows yet again. No biggie, it doesn’t take all that long on my hardware anyway.

So I do exactly what I did before – I wipe the partition during setup, and recreate it, and let Windows install on to it.  I follow exactly the same steps as before.  This time, when Windows reboots after installation – instead of running that stupid lil welcome wizard, it dumps me at the welcome screen with just the administrator user visible.  What the…?  Where the heck was the wizard to add users etc?

I don’t get Microsoft, really I don’t.

Anyway, third time lucky.

You’re probably wondering why I’m reloading for a third time? I don’t know.  I just can’t handle the idea of trying to use Windows when the installation didn’t go as smoothly as I expected it to.  It’s like a psychological block – I’m going to constantly get the feeling that something is not right if I just let it go.

So I reload yet again. :p

I figured out that the welcome wizard didn’t run because when Windows asks to adjust the resolution, I bumped my keyboard and accidentally cancelled the change – which means the wizard does not run. Odd.

One of my 120gb drives failed, so I thought I would finally get around to reorganising my system to the way I want… Linux as primary, and Windows as secondary for gaming etc. It makes sense, since I’m getting ADSL in the next couple of days, and I won’t have the driver issues with my USB isdn adapter under Linux anymore. Now I can finally get rid of this shitty Microsoft platform as my every day OS.

So anyway, I reload, and I realise that I don’t have my LAN drivers handy, so I connect to the website to download them. I eventually find them, a 5mb or so download.

While it’s downloading (yeah yeah, slow ISDN), I’m browsing the site, and I discover this thing called ‘Download Center’. So I check it out. It apparently scans your system, and shows you what drivers you need to download. So I do that, just for the hell of it.

It basically says ‘LAN driver’ – Intel – size: 89Mb. I did a double take. What the fuck? 89Mb for a fucking LAN driver? You’ve got to be shitting me! Jesus, I need a LAN driver, not a frikkin’ operating system. Holy motherfuck, what the hell are these people thinking?!?

And then to add insult to injury, when I closed the window for that ‘Download Center’ software, Internet Explorer crashed. Luverly.

Have I mentioned that I fucking hate Windows?

Can’t wait until the frikkin’ LAN driver is loaded so I can get my faithful firefox running. Sheeee…

Mad Pengiun dot org :: Reviews : First Look At Solaris 10

So I’m busy perusing the above article, and for some reason I feel that I have to view the page source.

First thing I notice is this META tag: <META content=”MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400″ name=GENERATOR>

Interesting. Why would a *nix site have a tag like that? It would appear to me as if the site was designed on a *ptooie* Microsoft platform.

Ok, I’m not really one to talk, since I use Windows every day, and I hate it more every day too.

… The end of the year, that is.

Wow, what happened to it? Did the whole thing just go by when I blinked? I guess I’d better stop blinking then. I need to slow down and smell the roses a bit. There’s just too much happening (in my life) right now.

My son had his 4th birthday in August. My daughter will be 2 on 1 April… I’ll be hitting the big three-oh in March. Fuck, what happened?

My daughter has been randomly bashing my wife’s computer’s keyboard while I type this. I swear, I have seen Windows do things I’ve never seen in my life before.

For, eg, it has now restarted twice, and both times Windows has returned to the Welcome screen with the same info (2 programs running) on my wife’s login. It’s like a hibernation reset or something. Weird. And this time round, she somehow paused the Windows startup, so that it shows you a message that Windows restoration has been paused, continue, or delete restoration data & return to the system menu. Wtf?

Ahh well. Kids. Gotta love em.