When you create a Microsoft Virtual Hard Drive either through Virtual PC or Virtual Server, you have to specify the maximum size of the file up front. While you can set the VHD to be a fixed or dynamically sized file, the total size the VHD is determined at the time you create it. Over time, however, you may want to increase the total size of the VHD file as requirements for the system change to allow more space for installed programs and data files.

Increasing the Size of the VHD File

With the help of the freely available VHD Resizer tool, you can expand the size of a VHD using it’s simple wizard interface. When opening VHD Resizer the wizard prompts you for the source VHD file to resize.

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Every change you make on your hard disk (like copy, paste, delete, save files) results in disk fragmentation. The modified file is stored in a separate segment on the hard disk that’s different from the original file location. Over time, this can slow down your computer because it looks at different places to open a file.

Defraggler is a free utility which offers you various options to defragment the hard disk. And it’s better than the Windows’ native defragmentation tool. Check out the snapshot of this program below. You can see that it gives all the details of drives on your computer. You can click on analyze button to know about the current condition of your drives.

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Photo by gary j wood

Hard drive space is cheaper than ever, but as it always does, your data (and, let’s face it, BitTorrent addiction) somehow expands to fill your space available for storage. Here’s a few simple but effective ways to clean out your hard drive.

Whether you’re looking to free up gigabytes worth of hard drive space or you just want to clear out the extra crud because you’re serious about a clean hard drive, we’ll highlight how to find and remove the biggest space hogging files on your drive, remove unnecessary files hiding deep in your filesystem, and offer a few tips for keeping things clean. The main focus of this guide is on Windows, but I’ll offer up Mac alternatives where available. (Mac users, you may also want to check out this guide to cleaning up and reviving your bloated, sluggish Mac.)

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