Have to remove/add .vmdk after 'Could not open the medium'

[Dr4ke]

Hi all,

I am currently running a Ubuntu machine, with a Windows 8.1 VM. Every day I go to start the W8 VM and I get the below error message. I can see the .vmdk file and I can easily work around the problem by doing these steps:

1) File - Virtual Media Manager - Release - Remove

2) Settings - Storage - Add Hard Disk - Choose Existing Disk - Locate .vmdk file - Add

I'm just not sure why I have to do this every day....

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine WindowsVM.

Could not open the medium '/media/simon/Windows VM/WindowsVM.vmdk'.

VD: error VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND opening image file '/media/simon/Windows VM/WindowsVM.vmdk' (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: Medium
Interface: IMedium {05f2bbb6-a3a6-4fb9-9b49-6d0dda7142ac}

[Perryg]

Usually this means that the location of the file (*.vmdk) can not be found. Since you can remove it and then add it back in to get it to work you need to figure out why the location gets lost in the first place. Is there anything different with the location? Symlink, Etc? What version of VirtualBox and is it the repo version or did you get it from VirtualBox.

Post the guests log file ( as an attachment )

Also why is the guest vmdk instead of vdi?

[Dr4ke]

The only oddity with the location of the (*.vmdk) file is that it's on a different partition to my main Linux distribution (which can obviously still see the other partition) as a mounted drive.

There are four files in 'VirtualBox VMs --> WindowsVM --> Logs' so I have attached 3 out of the 4 (due to a limitation of this forum).

RE: why I'm using vmdk instead of vdi - honestly, because that's what was advised. I am not well versed in virtualbox so was guided in what to do!

[mpack]

VBox keeps logs of the last four sessions. We only need one of the logs here (from a relevent and completed session), and we would prefer that you compressed it before attaching it. Both in order to conserve server storage: these things are kept for years.

[loukingjr]

RE: why I'm using vmdk instead of vdi - honestly, because that's what was advised. I am not well versed in virtualbox so was guided in what to do!

Don't listen to them anymore.

[Perryg]

Code: Select all

00:00:02.069257 File system of '/home/simon/VirtualBox VMs/WindowsVM/Snapshots/{2ce72929-0732-4e6c-ae35-3f334347f056}.vmdk' is ext4

So your /home folder is on a different partition which I totally get. I too have this setup because it just makes sense. What is odd is VirtualBox can not find the guest on load.
This puts it to a host issue. The only thing I see in the logs is you are running the repo version of VirtualBox and not the one from VirtualBox.org. We don't support any other builds than the ones from here so you can switch to ours and see if it fixes your issue or contact the Ubuntu forums for assistance.

[Dr4ke]

Thanks for all the replies guys!

VBox keeps logs of the last four sessions. We only need one of the logs here (from a relevent and completed session), and we would prefer that you compressed it before attaching it. Both in order to conserve server storage: these things are kept for years.

apologies! I'll look at removing/compressing these!

Don't listen to them anymore.

Would you mind explaining the difference between the two and why vdi instead of vmdk ?

Code: Select all

So your /home folder is on a different partition which I totally get. I too have this setup because it just makes sense. What is odd is VirtualBox can not find the guest on load.
This puts it to a host issue. The only thing I see in the logs is you are running the repo version of VirtualBox and not the one from VirtualBox.org. We don't support any other builds than the ones from here so you can switch to ours and see if it fixes your issue or contact the Ubuntu forums for assistance.

Ah ok I didn't realise I was running the wrong version! I'll uninstall and install the version from VirtualBox.org next week I'm pretty sure I tried this earlier but I got a conflict when trying to install it. I'll give it another go and post my results

[mpack]

Would you mind explaining the difference between the two and why vdi instead of vmdk ?

VDI is the native format in VirtualBox. VMDK is supported mainly for the purpose of allowing you to import VMs from VMWare. Only the VDI format supports all VirtualBox features, and should IMHO be used when possible.