Issue moving VDI, now when i reattach vdi, it's showing a 6 month old version

[devineonline]

So basically i wanted to extend my VDI but it was fixed size so i read up and was going to clone it to a new drive, the clone would apparently create the clone as a dynamic.

I went into vbox settings, unmounted the vdi.

I went into virtual media manager and removed the hard disks as well as there were old ones so i wanted to tidy it up.

I did the clone to the new drive

Then back into vbox settings and readded the VDI to the vbox.

Then i booted up the guest and its showing a very old version of itself and have no idea why.

Did using the media manager to remove them from vbox mess up the link with the snapshots.

In the vbox settings there are no snapshots, but in the vbox folder there are 13 snapshots up to a few gb each one.

Got no idea what info to provide, appreciate any ideas on how to fix.

Searching forums i couldnt find any info on my specific situation

Host windows 10
guest centos 7

[scottgus1]

Did using the media manager to remove them from vbox mess up the link with the snapshots.

Could very well have ,and a six month old state strongly implies that it did.

If the original fixed-disk VDI and all of the snapshot disk files are still available, you can carefully follow the instructions in Mpack's CloneVDI to make a clone of the final snapshot, then use that disk file in a new guest. You should be able to get the final state of data in the new guest.

[devineonline]

Thanks for your reply mate, unfortunately exactly the same.

FYI i did further reading and i only have .sav files in my snapshots folder, these are just ram dumps arent they?

I just did a test on another vbox and creating a snapshot adds a vdi to its snapshots folder.

Can anyone confirm that removing vdivia media manager also removes all associated snapshots, and is there any way to recover this at all?

[scottgus1]

Please zip and post the .vbox file that had the original fixed disk file.

[devineonline]

Thanks for your help, ive zipped the following in case they are useful.
vbox
vbox-prev
logs/

Appreciate the help so far fellas, not end of the world if i've lost it, just a few weeks to set everything up just how it was.

Also fyi, before all this i also tweaked with the vbox settings, upped cpus/ram, updated boot order and disabled audio/usb

[scottgus1]

Thanks for the files! Here is what I see:

<HardDisks>
<HardDisk uuid="{5edde182-a757-47fe-86e0-77bf59294656}" location="H:/centos7/Centos 7.5 64bit.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal"/>
<HardDisk uuid="{3ee47f32-ef0c-432c-931c-400d5e99a8e0}" location="Y:/centos7.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal"/>
<HardDisk uuid="{cbe808fd-d983-4e5d-bc76-399c063dcfef}" location="H:/Y DRIVE BACKUP/Centos 6.7 i386/Centos 6.7 i386.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal">
<HardDisk uuid="{b145e4bf-fe42-4383-ac66-4f3451f496d6}" location="C:/Users/Lee/VirtualBox VMs/Centos 6.7 i386/Snapshots/{b145e4bf-fe42-4383-ac66-4f3451f496d6}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
</HardDisk>
<HardDisk uuid="{2aff5ecb-15f7-4fff-bc24-03a9ac2e48f4}" location="H:/centos7/Clone of Centos 7.5 64bit.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal"/>
</HardDisks>
.................
<StorageController name="SATA" type="AHCI" PortCount="1" useHostIOCache="false" Bootable="true" IDE0MasterEmulationPort="0" IDE0SlaveEmulationPort="1" IDE1MasterEmulationPort="2" IDE1SlaveEmulationPort="3">
<AttachedDevice type="HardDisk" hotpluggable="false" port="0" device="0">
<Image uuid="{2aff5ecb-15f7-4fff-bc24-03a9ac2e48f4}"/>
</AttachedDevice>
</StorageController>

The guest has had 4 disks attached to it:

H:/centos7/Centos 7.5 64bit.vdi
Y:/centos7.vdi
H:/Y DRIVE BACKUP/Centos 6.7 i386/Centos 6.7 i386.vdi
H:/centos7/Clone of Centos 7.5 64bit.vdi

"H:/Y DRIVE BACKUP/Centos 6.7 i386/Centos 6.7 i386.vdi" has a snapshot disk:
C:/Users/Lee/VirtualBox VMs/Centos 6.7 i386/Snapshots/{b145e4bf-fe42-4383-ac66-4f3451f496d6}.vdi

The storage controller has one disk file loaded, with a UUID starting '2aff'. That disk is:
H:/centos7/Clone of Centos 7.5 64bit.vdi
This disk appears to have been a clone of "H:/centos7/Centos 7.5 64bit.vdi".

The only disk here that could be a "missing six months data" disk is the set with a snapshot:
"H:/Y DRIVE BACKUP/Centos 6.7 i386/Centos 6.7 i386.vdi"
C:/Users/Lee/VirtualBox VMs/Centos 6.7 i386/Snapshots/{b145e4bf-fe42-4383-ac66-4f3451f496d6}.vdi

The other disks could be older backups.

If you tried CloneVDI, it appears you may have cloned the wrong disk. It seems to me that the disk you need to clone is the snapshot file {b145e4bf-fe42-4383-ac66-4f3451f496d6}.vdi, and you need to do it exactly as the CloneVDI instructions say to do it.

[devineonline]

Hey,

Cheers for taking a look but no new info for me there.

Yea i have 2 Guests: an old Centos 6.7 which is several years old, and Centos 7 which is about a year old.

I have searched my entire PC and those are all me trying to check vdi's on my system to see if any of them had the files i was looking for.

Thanks all for your help but looks like im fucked, though I'm still interested to know how I fucked up if anyone can explain the loss of snapshots it would be useful to me and perhaps others reading this in the future.

I read the the docs but they don't really cover the nuances of snapshots in relation to virtual media manager.

Thanks again.

[scottgus1]

Sorry we couldn't get things going!

As a suggestion, if you take backups of your guests, especially before you change things, you can restore a working guest easily if something goes wrong.

One thing you would need to do is have the guest's disk file in the same folder as the guest's .vbox file and Snapshots folder. The guest folder can be on any host drive, and the guest disk files should be in the guest folder. Then, after the guest is fully shut down, not save-stated, a copy of the whole guest folder serves as a backup. Restoring is changing the failed guest's folder name (or deleting the folder) then copying the backup back to the original location.

Virtualbox 6.0.x and later allow moving the guest folder to the drive the guest disk is on (right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list and choose Move), then move the guest disk into the guest folder next to the .vbox file (Virtual Media Manager, select the guest's disk, Move toolbar button).

[devineonline]

I Just had a thought, I mentioned there were SAV files in the snapshots folder, is it possible to restore my VM using these?

There is some data that I just realised i really need to try and get back again, even if its just files, the VM doesn't have to be completely functional lol.

I came across adoptstate command, anyone have experience with this?

Im going to backup my VDI file and try to see if i can hail mary this

[scottgus1]

8.15 VBoxManage adoptstate
If you have a Saved state file (.sav) that is separate from the VM configuration, you can use this
command to adopt the file. This will change the VM to saved state and when you start it, Oracle
VM VirtualBox will attempt to restore it from the saved state file you indicated. This command
should only be used in special setups.

It seems that this command does what you want. I would back up the VM before trying it.

[devineonline]

I've given it a try, vbox doesn't boot and i get the following:

Failed to load unit 'HWACCM' (VERR_SSM_LOADED_TOO_MUCH).

This was due to me increasing the settings on the VM so i fixed this one, then i get this:
pci#0: Device in slot 0x28 has been removed! vendor=0x8086 device=0x2415 [ver=4 pass=final] (VERR_SSM_LOAD_CONFIG_MISMATCH).
Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: ConsoleWrap
Interface: IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}

I've then discarded the state which delates the .sav, though i created a backup so i can copy the file back in and retry after tweaking some settings

The following changes each time, vendor=0x8086 device=0x2415, it references other items, if i could somehow get a list of these references i can get my settings back.

Scott you've been super helpful mate, and instead of the back and forth on a forum, would you be open to me paying for your time on a skype call or similar to take a look?

Or is this level of recovery above your skill set?

Realised still had client work on there that i gotta redo that will take me several hours, along with everything else.

How do we get in touch with High Level Vbox staff if possible lol?

[devineonline]

Update: I managed to get the VM to boot with the save state, but it outputs some errors and reboots, tried multiple saved states without luck.

I guess this is where i concede defeat and go get a bottle of bourbon to ease the pain