Broken VM after deleting *.SAV file. "A differencing image of snapshot X could not be found"

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RossKemp
Posts: 1
Joined: 21. Jun 2018, 10:48

Broken VM after deleting *.SAV file. "A differencing image of snapshot X could not be found"

Post by RossKemp »

I get the following error:
A differencing image of snapshot [X] could not be found. Could not find an open hard disk with UUID [Y].
Possible genesis of this: I deleted the *.SAV file.

The VDI files and VDI Header data:
main.vdi
UUID create
9c6
UUID parent
000
I have 3 snapshots:
UUID create
623
UID parent
9c6

UUID create
d8e
UUID parent
623

UUID create
bf4
UUID parent
d8e
What I've tried:

Cloning with VBoxManage.exe, output:
...Parent medium with UUID {d8e...} of the medium '...Snapshots\{bf4...} is not found in the media registry ('....VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml')
Cloning with CloneVDI, SlimVDI.
Editing main.vbox

Please help!
Thank you!
Attachments
main.vbox.bak.txt
My *.VBOX file.
(32.19 KiB) Downloaded 3 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Broken VM after deleting *.SAV file. "A differencing image of snapshot X could not be found"

Post by mpack »

Uh... that error message doesn't say that it's missing a .sav file, it says that it's missing a VDI from the snapshot chain, that means either the base VDI in the VM folder or one of the difference images from the snapshots subfolder. A missing sav file is easily repairable, a lost VDI file is not (not without data loss).

Either way, you'd have to restore the missing file from your last backup, or revert the VM to a snapshot which dates from before the lost file. The latter is what will involve data loss, and the amount will depend on where in the chain the deleted VDI was, and how old any previous VDI is.

I'm not sure what the "Cloning with CloneVDI" line means, i.e. there are lots of VDIs you could have cloned, and the choice matters a lot. E.g. cloning the base VDI always works (if you didn't delete it). SlimVDI is just an outdated fork of my CloneVDI that someone stuck on Github, so I'm not going to touch that at all.

If you deleted the base VDI, i.e. the first VDI in the chain, and you don't have a backup, then you can kiss goodbye to that VM.
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