Merge unnecessary differencing VDI

[pjw9]

When I started to backup my VM, I was surprised that I had 2 VDI's attached to the machine totalling 70GB, instead of the expected 1 VDI of ~50GB.

If I don't have any snapshots, and the VDI is not set immutable, should I have a 'Current State' line in the Snapshots window, and a subordinate 'differencing' VDI in the Virtual Media Manager?

I'm thinking not, that the 'Current State' resulted from a snapshot I made then decided to delete when I was running 5.1.4 (I've since reverted to 5.0.26 due to the WIN7 guest sound issues, still present in 5.1.6). I had also briefly set the machine's VDI immutable.

Is there a way to merge the differencing VDI with the static base VDI? I'd much rather run with just one normal VDI.

[scottgus1]

I believe you can use Mpack's CloneVDI on the differencing image to get a complete cloned disk, which you can use in place of the disk you have now.

[socratis]

If I don't have any snapshots, and the VDI is not set immutable, should I have a 'Current State' line in the Snapshots window, and a subordinate 'differencing' VDI in the Virtual Media Manager?

Short answers: Yes, No.

Longer answers: You'll always have a "Current State" line in the Snapshots window. You have to have something, right? The state where your VM is right now is known as the "Current State". Just create a VM, any VM, and look at the snapshots window.

For the differencing VDI it most probably came out of some cloning, linking or other exotic operation. Follow scottgus1's advice and use mpack's CloneVDI tool to merge the VDIs.