Rookie can't clone vdi

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Solarczar
Posts: 13
Joined: 10. Mar 2021, 17:31

Rookie can't clone vdi

Post by Solarczar »

Guys, I would sure appreciate some help with what is probably a rookie problem, relative to a vdi cloning of HD, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've done this 20+ times in the past, but this time following Vbox upgrade to 6.1.18 on my 2013 MacBook Pro running High Sierra 10.13.6, it's simply giving me errors that I can't resolve. I've been reading for days, so I'm at a loss.

To be clear, the VM is working fine. I run Home Assistant on a Linux VM within VBox on an old MacBook Pro. I wanted a backup of my vdi before proceeding with a Home Assistant upgrade. Pretty simple I thought

1st-5th Attempts:
I am the Administrator
Open Vbox
(didn't do this step the 1st/2nd attempts) Remove HDD from VM (never remove HDD from VM instance in past, but read that others had success)
Virtual Media Manager
Copy vdi giving it name HAcore0304.vdi. (I've tried cloning to same directory or directing to another directory)

6th-10th+ Attempts...
Went into Terminal and ran vboxmanage clonevdi, and would get the same errors. Here is the exact output...

SolarCzarHA:~ MB2$ vboxmanage clonevdi /Users/MB2/Downloads/HAupgrage.vdi /Users/MB2/Downloads/HAcore0304.vdi
0%...
Progress state: VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR
VBoxManage: error: Failed to clone medium
VBoxManage: error: Could not create the clone medium '/Users/MB2/Downloads/HAcore0304.vdi' (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR)
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80bb0004), component MediumWrap, interface IMedium
VBoxManage: error: Context: "RTEXITCODE handleCloneMedium(HandlerArg *)" at line 1071 of file VBoxManageDisk.cpp

Ran Disk Utility to verify Mac's HDD. No problems. Reran in terminal, no joy.

Then read something about running vboxmanage as root, entered sudo su, whoami resolved as root, ran vboxmanage clonevdi command above and got same error.

Like I say all the time...I'm not a Chef, but I'm a damn fine Cook. I'm just trying to follow the recipe that others laid out to accomplish my task, but I'm at a loss. Can anyone help me?
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Rookie can't clone vdi

Post by scottgus1 »

if you make a copy of the disk file in Finder, just a basic copy without any Virtualbox tools, does the copy complete?
Solarczar
Posts: 13
Joined: 10. Mar 2021, 17:31

Re: Rookie can't clone vdi

Post by Solarczar »

Unfortunately no. This happens quite frequently. Almost like the files are getting consistently corrupted
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Rookie can't clone vdi

Post by scottgus1 »

I found by web-searching "clone VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR site:forums.virtualbox.org" that this has happened before, and when the poster could also not make a plain copy of the disk file using just the host OS, then it meant that the host disk has a problem. Sounds like yours is in the same boat, despite the disk check succeeding.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Rookie can't clone vdi

Post by mpack »

scottgus1 wrote:despite the disk check succeeding.
People often never go beyond the quick disk check, despite that only being a test of the filesystem structures, not the entire disk surface.

VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR sounds like a sector error, i.e. an error on the disk surface. The only other thing it could mean is that the host disk partition is full.
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