Uninstalled Virtual Box without deleting the VDI

Question

I created a VM using Virtual Box, but I gave it 25 GB, and I had 15 GB free. So I deleted it, and soon, uninstalled Virtual Box, but when I open my filesystem's properties, it is full, I mean to say about 80% of it is still in use, and the vdi file isn't anywhere. How do I free it up?

That is why in the future, always use dynamic disk allocation. — Mario Kamenjak, Feb 25 '16 at 10:49
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda7 17G 15G 1008M 94% / — Nafees, Feb 25 '16 at 11:24
You say you "deleted it" before uninstalling VB. What does this mean? — Organic Marble, Feb 25 '16 at 12:27
I deleted the Virtual Machine only (not the VDI), then uninstalled Virtual Box. — Nafees, Feb 25 '16 at 12:34

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 25 '16 at 10:10

2

By default your VirtualBox files should be located in $HOME/VirtualBox VMs/ so if you navigate there you should easily see if there are any remaining .vdi files still in place.

If your files were in a non-default location try running the following in a Terminal window to find them:

find $HOME -iname *.vdi

And when you find the files you can manually delete them...

References:

10.1. Where VirtualBox stores its files

answered Feb 25 '16 at 10:10

andrew.46

37,085
25
149
228

I've tried that before asking that question, I think it damaged my filesystem, because it must've tried to allocate 25GB, while I had only 15 GB free. – Nafees Feb 25 '16 at 10:28
So the `find` command had no results? – andrew.46 Feb 25 '16 at 10:57
yes, no results, 100% sure. – Nafees Feb 25 '16 at 11:07
ext4 is quite robust, it doesn't get damaged because of trying to allocate more space than it has available. – Javier Rivera Feb 26 '16 at 07:37
Check this question to find what is using your disk space: http://askubuntu.com/questions/73160/how-do-i-find-the-amount-of-free-space-on-my-hard-drive – Javier Rivera Feb 26 '16 at 07:39
Since there are multiple file formats the hard disk image could be using it might be easier to use 'find $HOME -iname *.vbox' – Alex Broadwin Aug 23 '19 at 18:34

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 23 '19 at 17:59

1

Uninstall VirtualBox:

sudo apt-get remove --purge virtualbox

Remove all settings:

sudo rm ~/.config/VirtualBox/ -Rf

edited Aug 23 '19 at 17:59

Eliah Kagan

116,445
54
318
493

answered Aug 23 '19 at 17:55

Mir Rahed Uddin

609
1
8
19

Uninstalled Virtual Box without deleting the VDI

2 Answers2