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→Shrinking a Virtual Disk
The amount by which a virtual disk file can be reduced depends entirely on the amount of unallocated space available and cannot be specified by the user. Only ''growable'' virtual disks on Windows hosts may be shrunk. It is not currently possible to shrink a virtual disk on a Linux host. Before a ''pre-allocated'' disk on a Windows Host can be shrunk it must first be converted using the steps outlined previously in this chapter. A further restriction is that there must be no snapshots of the virtual disk. If snapshots exist, they should be removed prior to performing the shrink operation.
Assuming the virtual disk to be shrunk is a "growable" disk and is on a Windows host, the first step is to prepare the virtual disk for shrinking. To do this, the disk must be mounted with a drive letter on the Windows host. This can be achieved using the ''VMware Dismount DiskMount Tool'' which is available for download from [http://www.vmware.com/download/ws/#utilities www.vmware.com/download/ws/#utilities]. Once installed, a virtual disk may be mounted using a command similar to the following:
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