CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
sdrubble
Posts: 15
Joined: 19. Jul 2009, 23:07
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win XP, Linux Mint
Location: Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by sdrubble »

mpack wrote:What tool did you use to check the dates?
I'm usually wary of anything built-in, anything automatic, anything default, and mostly anything Microsoft (their OS being the necessary evil). :evil:

The tool I use (and heartily recommend :D ) to compress/uncompress/list archive contents/check CRCs is 7-zip 16.02 (64-bit). According to http://7-zip.org/history.txt , my version is a bit outdated.

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit, which is also outdated by one year or so.

HTH - Cheers ! :mrgreen:
mpack
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Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by mpack »

Thanks, I've used 7-zip before and didn't care for it. I'm now using WinRAR at work. It's a bit basic (Win98 era UI), but I prefer that to what WinZip has done which is to go all touchscreen UI and monstrous bloat, i.e. like Corel does with everything it touches.
KCBDurfee
Posts: 8
Joined: 2. Apr 2015, 18:19

Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by KCBDurfee »

Great tool, I've been using it for several years. But I have a GUI suggestion. Currently running latest Clone VDI (3.01) and VirtualBox (5.2.4-119785-Win), Win 8. When I start the Clone VDI tool, there are 3 windows open, two for the main (starting) window and one showing progress. If I go to the main window, it appears I could re-start another cloning session, the 'Proceed' button is still active (though I havent tried that). Is there any way you could in-activate the main window and just show the progress window until the operation is done? Or at least de-activate the 'Proceed' button on the main window during a clone operation.
mpack
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Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by mpack »

I like to see the parameters for the current task, so I wouldn't like to hide the main window. But, disabling the buttons does sound like a good suggestion, thanks.

I think that at some time in the past the progress dialog was modal (if it isn't still), meaning clicking on a background window would just give you a "bing" error. At some point the modal dialog must have become annoying, so apparantly I made it modeless, though I don't recall when.
satishp
Posts: 2
Joined: 28. Feb 2018, 07:35

Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by satishp »

Hello,
Great little tool.
However I came across a strange usecase. I have a VMDK with 1 snapshot as shown below

Code: Select all

 Directory of D:\VMs

27-Feb-2018  07:37 AM    <DIR>          caches
27-Feb-2018  07:37 AM             8,684 nvram
27-Feb-2018  08:48 AM    10,279,190,528 dca-000001.vmdk
27-Feb-2018  08:48 AM            28,158 dca-Snapshot1.vmsn
27-Feb-2018  08:32 PM   100,191,764,480 dca.vmdk
27-Feb-2018  08:32 PM               453 dca.vmsd
27-Feb-2018  08:32 PM             2,768 dca.vmx
27-Feb-2018  08:32 PM               281 dca.vmxf
If I select dca-000001.vmdk as the Source and clone to a vdi, I do not get a merged VDI. The tool reports no error but the cloned VDI is only 15.7GB (larger than my snapshot vmdk but far less than base+snapshot) . VBox says "No bootable media found. System halted" when I boot.
I tried just the base vmdk (dca.vmdk) and the output VDI boots fine but obviously I do not have the latest changes (that happened post snapshot creation).
The Partition Info.. shows N for all partitions when I choose the snapshot vmdk but indicates Y for one partition if I provide the base vmdk.

I understand that Virtual Box is the main target here but wonder if there's something simple that I can fix to get this working.
mpack
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Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by mpack »

That doesn't look like a VirtualBox project. The ability to clone VMDK snapshots has only been tested on VMDK snapshot chains created by VirtualBox. It assumes that certain control information is present because VirtualBox puts it there.

Couldn't you create the clone in VMWare? What exactly are you trying to do?
satishp
Posts: 2
Joined: 28. Feb 2018, 07:35

Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by satishp »

Yes, it is not a VirtualBox project. We were sent this VMware image but unfortunately we do not have a license to run any of the VMware products. And those who created the VM use snapshots extensively. I cannot ask them to delete the snapshots to have just one VMDK (base+snapshots merged). I was hoping to convert the VMware VMDKs to VDI and use that in VirtualBox. But I understand now that this may not be possible. Thank you for your response.
mpack
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Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by mpack »

The standard trick, if you can't use the original control information (and also can't use CloneVDI) is to add the VDMK images, oldest one first, to a VirtualBox VM. You just keep replacing the currently mounted VMDK with the next newest one in the chain. This has the effect of registering all the necessary media but leaving only the latest one mounted. Then you would clone the VM - I think the cloned VM should have a merged VDI, if this idea works at all.

Otherwise I'd investigate the free version of VMWare Workstation.
adeyris
Posts: 2
Joined: 6. Apr 2018, 16:07

Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by adeyris »

Hi !
I'm trying to copy my linux VM to a different computer, but export or copy the entire folder generates an error.
When I use CloneVDI, i get the following eroor :
''Got OS error 23 when reading from source file"
Do you have any idea why ?

Thanks,
Antoine
mpack
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Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by mpack »

MSDN documents Windows error 23 as being a CRC error. So, you have a bad source disk. Weird. That's the second one today (not with CloneVDI).
Ploni
Posts: 7
Joined: 18. Jun 2015, 03:22

Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by Ploni »

Thanks for a great tool, but I've noticed an interesting issue: when I make an image of my computer using "VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client", I can open the resulting VMDK file with 7-zip without any issue. However, when I then compress that file (or any other file) using CloneVDI, I can't open the resulting VDI file in 7-zip. If I boot a Virtualbox VM with this VDI file, then I can open it with 7-zip too. So I think this is an issue with CloneVDI.

Any ideas?
mpack
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Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by mpack »

Do you mean compaction? CloneVDI has no compression feature. Compaction!=compression (unwanted data gets thrown away, not compressed).

I imagine your problem is due to some kind of checksum/manifest check.
Ploni
Posts: 7
Joined: 18. Jun 2015, 03:22

Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by Ploni »

mpack wrote:Do you mean compaction? CloneVDI has no compression feature. Compaction!=compression (unwanted data gets thrown away, not compressed).
Yes, sorry. I confuse the two very often.
I imagine your problem is due to some kind of checksum/manifest check.
So it's a problem in CloneVDI that's creating an incorrect checksum/manifest?
mpack
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Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by mpack »

CloneVDI doesn't know about anything that's not in the VDI. The VDI has no checksum or manifest. If your other tools maintain a manifest or checksum then it will not be maintained by CloneVDI (or VirtualBox). If you want me to comment more then you'd have to get very specific about what damage you think CloneVDI is doing. Something that can be easily reproduced.
bizulk
Posts: 1
Joined: 23. Apr 2018, 11:24

Re: CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

Post by bizulk »

I want to thank you you save my day, it fixed a PRE-HEADER problem I got after shutdown my computer.
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