Hello Srija I think this link can help you
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_file 2012/1/4 Musayev, Ilya <imusa...@webmd.net> > Depending on the objective – if I understand correctly – you are trying to > regain as much space as possible. if you really want to regain ALL not used > space from the virtual image file, I’d suggest to run a utility like > “bcwipe” from within the virtual guest OS first. It will analyze your > partitions and zero out the blocks that have been used in past but are not > used now. **** > > ** ** > > Then you can attempt to cp --sparse=never - this in theory should give > you back as much space as possible.**** > > ** ** > > Regards**** > > ilya**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > *From:* rhelv5-list-boun...@redhat.com [mailto: > rhelv5-list-boun...@redhat.com] *On Behalf Of *John Haxby > *Sent:* Wednesday, January 04, 2012 4:22 AM > *To:* Srija; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (Tikanga) discussion mailing-list > > *Subject:* Re: [rhelv5-list] Regarding sparse file**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > On 4 January 2012 02:15, Srija <swap_proj...@yahoo.com> wrote:**** > > Hi,**** > > **** > > If the file contains the sparse bits then can anybody guide me , how to > remove those ? For example**** > > when I am checking file.img [ as below] , it's size is 38G. Basically > it's size is 93G because of the sparse.**** > > ** ** > > > You mean you want to fill in the holes? > > The easy way to do this, assuming you have the disk space, is with "cp > --sparse=never file.img newfile.img; mv newfile.img file.img". > > You can also just re-write the file in place using perl/python/C/whatever > but that's slightly risky because if you run out of disk space part way > through you'll probably trash the file and lose whatever data you have. > > If this is a virtual machine image then you can fill in the sparse blocks > by creating a very large file in the guest (cp /dev/zero /tmp/huge; rm > /tmp/huge) although this won't necessarily fill all the sparse blocks (it > won't touch swap, for example). > > Why do you think you need to make the file non-sparse? > > jch**** > > _______________________________________________ > rhelv5-list mailing list > rhelv5-list@redhat.com > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-list > > -- esta es mi vida e me la vivo hasta que dios quiera
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