HyperV Virtual Disk Size Reduction with CloneZilla

There are so many articles that discuss reducing the size of a Hyper-V .VHD or .VHDX Virtual Disk file. Some work, but mostly the proposed solutions just seem to find a way not to work.

This article is about reducing the size of a CentOS 7 OS in a Microsoft Hyper-V Host.

Preparation

Make a backup copy of the Virtual Disk!

If not done already, clean up all of the files within the Operating System of the Virtual Disk OR mount the disk with a utility and delete any unwanted folders / directories and files.

Download an ISO image of CloneZilla (not FileZilla, that's related to FTP) appropriate for your hardware: https://clonezilla.org/downloads.php

Make a Disk Image

Boot from the CloneZilla ISO image.

Most of the defaults are fine, and to clone to an Image, select Disk-Image. Cloning from Disk to Disk has been found to not be 100% reliable in reducing the size of a Virtual Disk. Doing the "double step" of Disk to Image and then Image to Disk works every time. The granular steps within Clonezilla are beyond the scope of this article.

Restore Disk Image

After imaging, shut down the VM and attach a new Virtual Disk (Dynamically Expanding of course). Make sure it is the same size as the original, otherwise Clonezilla will need to change partition size. For example: 2048 GB

Boot up and use the Image file to create a new Virtual Disk.

AND, there's no need to "shrink" the VHD or VHDX as it is already shrunk