As the title says, I used around 200gb of storage in oracle's virtualbox to install Linux, and I did something wrong which caused Linux to keep crashing and never boot. I'm a noob at that kind of stuff, so...
Anyway, I was wondering if this would damage my 512gb samsung ssd?
Hi,
if your virtual machine is of no more use you can safely delete the virtual drive, no damage, it is totally safe.
Yes, it is safe. if your concern is for wearing the ssd, the next time you can use an external usb spinning drive, of course it will be slower than the ssd, and be assured that 200Gb can do no harm to your ssd
Don't be scared off. It took time for me to grasp VBox. YouTubes will help. I'm a semi-fan of Ubuntu Budgie. And it was VBox that brought me from Mac to Windows 10.
So, my SSD is safe from harm? I assume it's replaceable since it's a dell laptop so...
Osly.
You installed VBox. You elected to reserve 200GB for the Linux. You had issues booting that Linux and (apparently have given up). A few points --
1. STOP ASKING IF YOUR SSD IS SAFE. That doesn't apply here. In any imaginable way.
2. If you still have VirtualBox open it. See the area in green? If it's empty, like mine is --
-- it means you erased that Linux install and the 200GB associated space. Meaning you are back to where you were before you started playing with this app and all is well.
If there is a virtual install INSIDE that green box, it means you haven't uninstalled it. Yet. Right click it and erase it. If it asks 'erase everything' or words like that, yup, eliminate all of it. That will free up your 200GBs.
3. There's a scenario where you may have erased the Linux but didn't allow it to release the 200GBs. (I think.) You'll have to Google how to find that folder and erase it manually.
FYI -- If you're playing with VBox you don't need more than 10-20GBs to play with.
Quote
