Restoring VMs after Host Rebuild

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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Dave2-dck
Posts: 2
Joined: 14. Sep 2021, 05:51

Restoring VMs after Host Rebuild

Post by Dave2-dck »

Hi Guys,

I'm relatively inexperienced in VirtualBox, and am seeking assistance in recovering my VirtualBox VMs after a Windows 10 host system failure. I don't have an image backup of my host machine and therefore don't have a backup of the registry etc. However, I do have backups for the .VirtualBox folder from my user profile folder on the host machine (contents attached), and the folder containing the VMs themselves (i.e. each VM's .vbox, .vbox-prev, .vdi files and \Snapshot folder).

After re-building the host machine and re-installing Virtual Box, can i recover these VMs with the above data? I note from section 8.6 of the User Manual use of the registervm command to import VM definitions from an XML (presumably \.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml?) However that reference in the manual also suggests the VM may not have any hard or removeable disks attached (which mine did).

Any assistance in how to proceed would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

David.
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DotVirtualBoxFolderListing.txt
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BillG
Volunteer
Posts: 5100
Joined: 19. Sep 2009, 04:44
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Restoring VMs after Host Rebuild

Post by BillG »

All you need is the VirtualBox VMs folder. Copy it into your Users Folder on the rebuilt system.

To register each vm, double-click its .vbox file.

It really is a simple as that.
VB VMs.png
VB VMs.png (52.68 KiB) Viewed 1543 times
Bill
Dave2-dck
Posts: 2
Joined: 14. Sep 2021, 05:51

Re: Restoring VMs after Host Rebuild

Post by Dave2-dck »

Thanks @BillG. Great news & what I was hoping to hear. Just wanted to ask in advance as I have not yet rebuilt the host machine and being unable to restore the VMs might have made me try harder to recover the host machine rather than just rebuild it from scratch and restore data from backups.

Cheers,

David.
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