I'm nearly out of hard drive room on my machine and my drive I made for parallel is nearly 100gb. I never use Windows so i'd like to get that space back. I'm assuming I have to delete the application and then reformat the machine? Is this correct? If so, how do I do all this?
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Deleting Parallels and getting space back
- Thread starter jw3571
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VM's for Parallels are just files. You don't need to reformat anything. If you just find the VM(s) and delete them you can reclaim most of your space. The application isn't very big by itself. You may want to copy it to a external drive to save it (them) for another time though.
Make sure that the Parallels app has been quit (not running)
Remove the virtual machine file that you used for windows in Parallels. - http://kb.parallels.com/5029
Remove the Parallels app - http://kb.parallels.com/en/123349
If there is anything in your trash, empty the trash.
There's no reason that you would need to reformat your drive, unless you had Windows installed by Boot Camp - which means that Windows has a separate partition on the hard drive. You can normally remove that partition (if it exists) by running your Boot Camp assistant. If the assistant offers to remove the boot camp partition, you would choose to let it do that.
If you have never used Boot Camp (or don't know what it is), just ignore that info
Remove the virtual machine file that you used for windows in Parallels. - http://kb.parallels.com/5029
Remove the Parallels app - http://kb.parallels.com/en/123349
If there is anything in your trash, empty the trash.
There's no reason that you would need to reformat your drive, unless you had Windows installed by Boot Camp - which means that Windows has a separate partition on the hard drive. You can normally remove that partition (if it exists) by running your Boot Camp assistant. If the assistant offers to remove the boot camp partition, you would choose to let it do that.
If you have never used Boot Camp (or don't know what it is), just ignore that info
Good!
If were using your boot camp windows installation with Parallels, and you want to remove that boot camp partition, just run your Boot Camp Assistant, which will let you remove the partition safely, which should get you the bulk of your hard drive space back.
** Don't remove your boot camp partition any other way, unless you are prepared to reformat your drive, and restore everything. **
Then trash the Parallels app, and you should be good to go.
If were using your boot camp windows installation with Parallels, and you want to remove that boot camp partition, just run your Boot Camp Assistant, which will let you remove the partition safely, which should get you the bulk of your hard drive space back.
** Don't remove your boot camp partition any other way, unless you are prepared to reformat your drive, and restore everything. **
Then trash the Parallels app, and you should be good to go.
Use Boot Camp Assistant while booted up in OS X. You can find it in the Applications/Utilities folder.
If your system has had that boot camp partition for 6 years of use, then you may find out that you can't recover that space with Boot Camp assistant, as it may report errors, or just tell you it can't remove the partition.
It happens.
If you see those kind of errors when you try the Boot Camp tip, then your only real choice at that point is to boot to another drive, erase your boot drive, removing all partitions in the process, then restore OS X from your backup.
Hopefully you won't need to do that, and the Boot Camp tip will work the first time to recover that partition space.
If your system has had that boot camp partition for 6 years of use, then you may find out that you can't recover that space with Boot Camp assistant, as it may report errors, or just tell you it can't remove the partition.
It happens.
If you see those kind of errors when you try the Boot Camp tip, then your only real choice at that point is to boot to another drive, erase your boot drive, removing all partitions in the process, then restore OS X from your backup.
Hopefully you won't need to do that, and the Boot Camp tip will work the first time to recover that partition space.