VMware Workstation

My Host and Guest OS are both Windows 10 Pro.

My Guest OS consists of 5 virtual disks.

I am using VMware Workstation 17 Pro version17.6.3 build-24583834

Clean Up Disk was stuck on - Reclaimable space: 554.4 GB 

Never getting - Cleanup is not necessary

At that point - Disk space used by the virtual machine was: 1.7 TB

Does anyone know of software that can repair corrupt VMDK files?

I have only found software that can check for errors and recover data

from damaged VMDK files.

In lieu of such software I fixed my problem as follows.

After some research I found that the problem with Clean Up Disk not working had to do with:

Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB (in Virtual Machine Settings) - Current Size 1.2 TB, and

In Windows Properties (in the Guest OS) the Used space was only 636 GB.

I then Removed Hard Disk 2 (in Virtual Machine Settings), and

moved the associated VMDK files to a temporary folder.

After this Clean Up Disk yielded:

Disk space used by this virtual machine: 551,4 GB

- CLEANUP IS NOT NECESSARY

Then after adding a NEW virtual disk and another using an EXISTING virtual disk

- i.e. the VMDK files that I had moved to a temporary folder.

I booted the Guest OS, and after some Disk Management, I copied everything

from my old to my new disk volume. 

Finally after shutting down the Guest OS I removed the EXISTING virtual disk.

Now Clean Up Disk yielded:

  Disk space used by this virtual machine: 1.2 GB

- Reclaimable space 64 KB

NOT - Cleanup is not necessary

but OK!

Size in Virtual Machine Settings reduced from 1.7 TB to 1.2 TB i.e. by 0.5 TB

Size on disk reduced from 1,70 TB to 1.15 TB i.e. by 0.55 TB

With my Guest OS running I have:

1)

Run CHKDSK on all disk volumes with the following switches: /F /R

a.

After system restart, when running CHKDSK C: /F /R

Windows has made corrections to the file system.

No further action is required.

b.

And when running CHKDSK on ALL the other disk volumes

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.

No further action is required.

c.

And all ended with:  0 KB in bad sectors.

.

My Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB has Drive Letter E:\

2)

Run Windows Disk Cleanup on ALL disk volumes

a.

On all disk volumes, except C:\

You don't need to scan this drive.

b.

Disk Clean Up  for WinOS (C:)

Total amount of disk soace you gain 4.16 GB

c.

I have also in Virtual Machine Settings Defragmented and Compacted ALL virtual drives.

.

But none of these actions remedied my problem.

Windows "Disk Clean-up" will not fix your problem with virtual disks, nor will chkdsk or any host disk cleanup/fixing utility, unless the host is crashing while the VM is running, or the storage has some issues and data loss occures. Please upload a screenshot of the folder showing all files in the VM's folder, including their size, while the VM is running! The "Details" view should do that nicely. And how much data you have on those virtual disks, what the Windows guest shows? How much RAM is allocated to the VM, and how much RAM is free on the host before the VM starts up?

My Host and Guest OS are both Windows 10 Pro.

My Guest OS consists of 5 virtual disks.

I am using VMware Workstation 17 Pro version17.6.3 build-24583834

Clean Up Disk was stuck on - Reclaimable space: 554.4 GB 

Never getting - Cleanup is not necessary

At that point - Disk space used by the virtual machine was: 1.7 TB

Does anyone know of software that can repair corrupt VMDK files?

I have only found software that can check for errors and recover data

from damaged VMDK files.

In lieu of such software I fixed my problem as follows.

After some research I found that the problem with Clean Up Disk not working had to do with:

Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB (in Virtual Machine Settings) - Current Size 1.2 TB, and

In Windows Properties (in the Guest OS) the Used space was only 636 GB.

I then Removed Hard Disk 2 (in Virtual Machine Settings), and

moved the associated VMDK files to a temporary folder.

After this Clean Up Disk yielded:

Disk space used by this virtual machine: 551,4 GB

- CLEANUP IS NOT NECESSARY

Then after adding a NEW virtual disk and another using an EXISTING virtual disk

- i.e. the VMDK files that I had moved to a temporary folder.

I booted the Guest OS, and after some Disk Management, I copied everything

from my old to my new disk volume. 

Finally after shutting down the Guest OS I removed the EXISTING virtual disk.

Now Clean Up Disk yielded:

  Disk space used by this virtual machine: 1.2 GB

- Reclaimable space 64 KB

NOT - Cleanup is not necessary

but OK!

Size in Virtual Machine Settings reduced from 1.7 TB to 1.2 TB i.e. by 0.5 TB

Size on disk reduced from 1,70 TB to 1.15 TB i.e. by 0.55 TB

With my Guest OS running I have:

1)

Run CHKDSK on all disk volumes with the following switches: /F /R

a.

After system restart, when running CHKDSK C: /F /R

Windows has made corrections to the file system.

No further action is required.

b.

And when running CHKDSK on ALL the other disk volumes

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.

No further action is required.

c.

And all ended with:  0 KB in bad sectors.

.

My Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB has Drive Letter E:\

2)

Run Windows Disk Cleanup on ALL disk volumes

a.

On all disk volumes, except C:\

You don't need to scan this drive.

b.

Disk Clean Up  for WinOS (C:)

Total amount of disk soace you gain 4.16 GB

c.

I have also in Virtual Machine Settings Defragmented and Compacted ALL virtual drives.

.

But none of these actions remedied my problem.

I have uploaded a word-document INFO.docx with the following indormation.

Showing problem with Manage > Clean Up Disks…

All WMDK files at the time of problem! Problem WMDK in red

Free RAM on the host before the VM starts up

RAM allocated to the VM

"screenshot" showing all files in the VM's folder, including their size, while the VM is running.

Data on virtual disks, what the Windows guest shows.

Windows "Disk Clean-up" will not fix your problem with virtual disks, nor will chkdsk or any host disk cleanup/fixing utility, unless the host is crashing while the VM is running, or the storage has some issues and data loss occures. Please upload a screenshot of the folder showing all files in the VM's folder, including their size, while the VM is running! The "Details" view should do that nicely. And how much data you have on those virtual disks, what the Windows guest shows? How much RAM is allocated to the VM, and how much RAM is free on the host before the VM starts up?

My Host and Guest OS are both Windows 10 Pro.

My Guest OS consists of 5 virtual disks.

I am using VMware Workstation 17 Pro version17.6.3 build-24583834

Clean Up Disk was stuck on - Reclaimable space: 554.4 GB 

Never getting - Cleanup is not necessary

At that point - Disk space used by the virtual machine was: 1.7 TB

Does anyone know of software that can repair corrupt VMDK files?

I have only found software that can check for errors and recover data

from damaged VMDK files.

In lieu of such software I fixed my problem as follows.

After some research I found that the problem with Clean Up Disk not working had to do with:

Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB (in Virtual Machine Settings) - Current Size 1.2 TB, and

In Windows Properties (in the Guest OS) the Used space was only 636 GB.

I then Removed Hard Disk 2 (in Virtual Machine Settings), and

moved the associated VMDK files to a temporary folder.

After this Clean Up Disk yielded:

Disk space used by this virtual machine: 551,4 GB

- CLEANUP IS NOT NECESSARY

Then after adding a NEW virtual disk and another using an EXISTING virtual disk

- i.e. the VMDK files that I had moved to a temporary folder.

I booted the Guest OS, and after some Disk Management, I copied everything

from my old to my new disk volume. 

Finally after shutting down the Guest OS I removed the EXISTING virtual disk.

Now Clean Up Disk yielded:

  Disk space used by this virtual machine: 1.2 GB

- Reclaimable space 64 KB

NOT - Cleanup is not necessary

but OK!

Size in Virtual Machine Settings reduced from 1.7 TB to 1.2 TB i.e. by 0.5 TB

Size on disk reduced from 1,70 TB to 1.15 TB i.e. by 0.55 TB

With my Guest OS running I have:

1)

Run CHKDSK on all disk volumes with the following switches: /F /R

a.

After system restart, when running CHKDSK C: /F /R

Windows has made corrections to the file system.

No further action is required.

b.

And when running CHKDSK on ALL the other disk volumes

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.

No further action is required.

c.

And all ended with:  0 KB in bad sectors.

.

My Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB has Drive Letter E:\

2)

Run Windows Disk Cleanup on ALL disk volumes

a.

On all disk volumes, except C:\

You don't need to scan this drive.

b.

Disk Clean Up  for WinOS (C:)

Total amount of disk soace you gain 4.16 GB

c.

I have also in Virtual Machine Settings Defragmented and Compacted ALL virtual drives.

.

But none of these actions remedied my problem.

I see no file attached to this thread or your post, but I'm not Broadcom employee either, so maybe the public can't see such files. You can upload the file to Google Drive, or OneDrive and share that and copy the link to it, maybe.

OK, I checked what this "Clean Up Disks..." thing is and realized that it's the same thing as compact. Compact can only compact your disk if there's at least as much free space on the host drive where the disk resides as much actual space is used by the VM, because the clean up process will "clone" the disk first by removing the unused parts, then deletes the original file and renames the new to the old. So if you have 2TB free space and the VM uses more than 1TB disk space actually, then you'll not be able to compact (clean up) the VM's disk. 

I have uploaded a word-document INFO.docx with the following indormation.

Showing problem with Manage > Clean Up Disks…

All WMDK files at the time of problem! Problem WMDK in red

Free RAM on the host before the VM starts up

RAM allocated to the VM

"screenshot" showing all files in the VM's folder, including their size, while the VM is running.

Data on virtual disks, what the Windows guest shows.

Windows "Disk Clean-up" will not fix your problem with virtual disks, nor will chkdsk or any host disk cleanup/fixing utility, unless the host is crashing while the VM is running, or the storage has some issues and data loss occures. Please upload a screenshot of the folder showing all files in the VM's folder, including their size, while the VM is running! The "Details" view should do that nicely. And how much data you have on those virtual disks, what the Windows guest shows? How much RAM is allocated to the VM, and how much RAM is free on the host before the VM starts up?

My Host and Guest OS are both Windows 10 Pro.

My Guest OS consists of 5 virtual disks.

I am using VMware Workstation 17 Pro version17.6.3 build-24583834

Clean Up Disk was stuck on - Reclaimable space: 554.4 GB 

Never getting - Cleanup is not necessary

At that point - Disk space used by the virtual machine was: 1.7 TB

Does anyone know of software that can repair corrupt VMDK files?

I have only found software that can check for errors and recover data

from damaged VMDK files.

In lieu of such software I fixed my problem as follows.

After some research I found that the problem with Clean Up Disk not working had to do with:

Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB (in Virtual Machine Settings) - Current Size 1.2 TB, and

In Windows Properties (in the Guest OS) the Used space was only 636 GB.

I then Removed Hard Disk 2 (in Virtual Machine Settings), and

moved the associated VMDK files to a temporary folder.

After this Clean Up Disk yielded:

Disk space used by this virtual machine: 551,4 GB

- CLEANUP IS NOT NECESSARY

Then after adding a NEW virtual disk and another using an EXISTING virtual disk

- i.e. the VMDK files that I had moved to a temporary folder.

I booted the Guest OS, and after some Disk Management, I copied everything

from my old to my new disk volume. 

Finally after shutting down the Guest OS I removed the EXISTING virtual disk.

Now Clean Up Disk yielded:

  Disk space used by this virtual machine: 1.2 GB

- Reclaimable space 64 KB

NOT - Cleanup is not necessary

but OK!

Size in Virtual Machine Settings reduced from 1.7 TB to 1.2 TB i.e. by 0.5 TB

Size on disk reduced from 1,70 TB to 1.15 TB i.e. by 0.55 TB

With my Guest OS running I have:

1)

Run CHKDSK on all disk volumes with the following switches: /F /R

a.

After system restart, when running CHKDSK C: /F /R

Windows has made corrections to the file system.

No further action is required.

b.

And when running CHKDSK on ALL the other disk volumes

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.

No further action is required.

c.

And all ended with:  0 KB in bad sectors.

.

My Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB has Drive Letter E:\

2)

Run Windows Disk Cleanup on ALL disk volumes

a.

On all disk volumes, except C:\

You don't need to scan this drive.

b.

Disk Clean Up  for WinOS (C:)

Total amount of disk soace you gain 4.16 GB

c.

I have also in Virtual Machine Settings Defragmented and Compacted ALL virtual drives.

.

But none of these actions remedied my problem.

I don't think disk space is an issue. The virtual machine is on a 4TB SSD drive by itself.

Here is the link to the word-document: INFO.docx

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AqetCyyeRFo8xkVu8wYV-RFB8JoNLKjJ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109296553659839726067&rtpof=true&sd=true

I see no file attached to this thread or your post, but I'm not Broadcom employee either, so maybe the public can't see such files. You can upload the file to Google Drive, or OneDrive and share that and copy the link to it, maybe.

OK, I checked what this "Clean Up Disks..." thing is and realized that it's the same thing as compact. Compact can only compact your disk if there's at least as much free space on the host drive where the disk resides as much actual space is used by the VM, because the clean up process will "clone" the disk first by removing the unused parts, then deletes the original file and renames the new to the old. So if you have 2TB free space and the VM uses more than 1TB disk space actually, then you'll not be able to compact (clean up) the VM's disk. 

I have uploaded a word-document INFO.docx with the following indormation.

Showing problem with Manage > Clean Up Disks…

All WMDK files at the time of problem! Problem WMDK in red

Free RAM on the host before the VM starts up

RAM allocated to the VM

"screenshot" showing all files in the VM's folder, including their size, while the VM is running.

Data on virtual disks, what the Windows guest shows.

Windows "Disk Clean-up" will not fix your problem with virtual disks, nor will chkdsk or any host disk cleanup/fixing utility, unless the host is crashing while the VM is running, or the storage has some issues and data loss occures. Please upload a screenshot of the folder showing all files in the VM's folder, including their size, while the VM is running! The "Details" view should do that nicely. And how much data you have on those virtual disks, what the Windows guest shows? How much RAM is allocated to the VM, and how much RAM is free on the host before the VM starts up?

My Host and Guest OS are both Windows 10 Pro.

My Guest OS consists of 5 virtual disks.

I am using VMware Workstation 17 Pro version17.6.3 build-24583834

Clean Up Disk was stuck on - Reclaimable space: 554.4 GB 

Never getting - Cleanup is not necessary

At that point - Disk space used by the virtual machine was: 1.7 TB

Does anyone know of software that can repair corrupt VMDK files?

I have only found software that can check for errors and recover data

from damaged VMDK files.

In lieu of such software I fixed my problem as follows.

After some research I found that the problem with Clean Up Disk not working had to do with:

Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB (in Virtual Machine Settings) - Current Size 1.2 TB, and

In Windows Properties (in the Guest OS) the Used space was only 636 GB.

I then Removed Hard Disk 2 (in Virtual Machine Settings), and

moved the associated VMDK files to a temporary folder.

After this Clean Up Disk yielded:

Disk space used by this virtual machine: 551,4 GB

- CLEANUP IS NOT NECESSARY

Then after adding a NEW virtual disk and another using an EXISTING virtual disk

- i.e. the VMDK files that I had moved to a temporary folder.

I booted the Guest OS, and after some Disk Management, I copied everything

from my old to my new disk volume. 

Finally after shutting down the Guest OS I removed the EXISTING virtual disk.

Now Clean Up Disk yielded:

  Disk space used by this virtual machine: 1.2 GB

- Reclaimable space 64 KB

NOT - Cleanup is not necessary

but OK!

Size in Virtual Machine Settings reduced from 1.7 TB to 1.2 TB i.e. by 0.5 TB

Size on disk reduced from 1,70 TB to 1.15 TB i.e. by 0.55 TB

With my Guest OS running I have:

1)

Run CHKDSK on all disk volumes with the following switches: /F /R

a.

After system restart, when running CHKDSK C: /F /R

Windows has made corrections to the file system.

No further action is required.

b.

And when running CHKDSK on ALL the other disk volumes

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.

No further action is required.

c.

And all ended with:  0 KB in bad sectors.

.

My Hard Disk 2 (NMVe) 2 TB has Drive Letter E:\

2)

Run Windows Disk Cleanup on ALL disk volumes

a.

On all disk volumes, except C:\

You don't need to scan this drive.

b.

Disk Clean Up  for WinOS (C:)

Total amount of disk soace you gain 4.16 GB

c.

I have also in Virtual Machine Settings Defragmented and Compacted ALL virtual drives.

.

But none of these actions remedied my problem.