How to free up space taken by windows 7 virtual machine on ubuntu host?

I tried to install windows 7 ultimate as a virtual machine on a ubuntu host machine. Due to lack of space the process of installing was aborted. However I found that it ate up space in my home directory. I tried removing VirtualBox. But it is not freeing up space. What can I do to get my home directory cleaned up?

TOA

3 Answers

Virtual Machines store their own data on disk as individual files outside of the VirtualBox (or VMware, depending on your setup) configuration files and folders.

As such, you need to find where you initially saved the virtual machines (probably somewhere inside your /home/$USER directory), and delete the actual folders and files that were created for the VM. That will free up the space on disk.

That will free up your space. It might be in a folder labeled "VirtualBox VMs" or "My VMs" or "Virtual Machines" or similar in your home folder, but there's no way for me to tell from this system.

To remove all files of a virtual machine select the VM (reinstall Virtual Box if needed) and choose remove from the right click menu:

In the next dialog select delete all files to free up physical space on the host:

Any virtual disk attached to another VM can not be deleted by this.

try looking in your home directory for stored files from virtual box. you should have your vm instance saved on their still. you can delete them to free up space. I once ran into this on my windows machine and that's what i did wrong