Resized with snap shot and things are not good!

[heffneil]

Hey guys I tried to resize my drive as it is very very full. I did this but not without knowing about snapshots and the trouble they cause when doing so. Anyway I have two snapshots that I can't delete, I got this error:

Failed to clone the virtual machine XXXXX.

Could not create the clone medium '/Users/XXXXX/VirtualBox VMs/XXXXXX Clone/XXXXXX Clone.vdi' (VERR_INVALID_PARAMETER).

Result Code: VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80BB0004)
Component: Medium
Interface: IMedium {05f2bbb6-a3a6-4fb9-9b49-6d0dda7142ac}

I believe this is because I have resized the current state with older states. I could try to resize it down but I don't remember the original size so that might be a problem.

I can't clone because that will cause the snapshots to merge and they can't.

I copied the file and then re-mounted it and that worked but Windows threw up because it isn't activated and I can't activate it since I already have.

Any thoughts or ideas would greatly be appreciated.

Neil

[mpack]

You could try cloning the newest snapshot VDI using CloneVDI. By rights it should complain too, but it's worth a try. If it succeeds you end up with a merged clone.

You don't say what your host is. CloneVDI is a Win32 app, it will also run well under Wine on Linux or OS X.

[heffneil]

I'm running osx mavericks as the host. Not sure how to do what you're saying. I took the vdi snapshot and mounted it but then windows said no way this is too much hardware changed.

[mpack]

Download CloneVDI, run it on a Windows host, or on your Mavericks host under Wine. Select the newest snapshot to clone - but make sure the entire snapshot chain is present, including the base VDI. If it works, build a new VM around the clone VDI.

[heffneil]

That's still going to cause the activation issue I am referencing. I can't delete previous snapshots for this virtual machine. I can't get the snapshot to recognize the larger disk either so I'm still at a huge standstill.

I believe what you are suggesting I have done by copying the vdi and starting it as a new machine. The windows activation is the next problem.

[mpack]

Copying the base VDI will lose all of the data which was contained in the snapshots, which may have included the activation token. If you don't care about recovering that data then fine, ignore what I've said and continue as you are.

Anyway, there is no practical way to avoid the reactivation message. That shouldn't be a problem anyway - just go ahead and reactivate. If you've already exceeded your activation count then you'll have to activate by phone. However all this is a Microsoft support issue.

[heffneil]

I mean no offense but I believe you're wrong in terms of the activation. There are articles pertaining to moving a virtual machine from one host to another without causing a reactivation.

I tried to clone the one snapshot and the steps are to build back the previous snapshots which isn't possible. Still at square 1.

[mpack]

Re that last sentence: if you succeed in cloning a snapshot then the result is always a merged snapshot chain, so the older snapshots would not be relevant. You build a new VM around the clone VDI. If you know what you're doing you can edit the .vbox file to use the same VM UUID as the old VM, which may prevent the reactivation notice.