Moved VBox VDI file before removing from GUI. How to reconnect?

[everastudent]

All,

I am a novice with using VirtualBox and have made an admittedly foolish error. I dragged my virtual machine to an external hard drive and deleted the original from my machine. I thought it would be simple to connect the virtual machine from the external drive but now realize that based on instructions I found afterward that I've done things out of order and perhaps screwed up the connection irretrievably. (I'd post the instructions, but I am new and the forum will not let me yet post links, apparently.) I also removed the SATA Controller shown in Figure A at the link.

Can anyone help me ameliorate these mistakes and reconnect the virtual machine from my external hard drive? Thanks in advance any and all.

[mpack]

Sounds like you can simply delete the VM from the manager, and that will fix the error. Restart the manager (not strictly necessary these days, but not harmful). You should then be able to add the machine from the new location.

That said: running from external drives carries many risks, mainly of corrupting the VM when you accidentally unplug the drive in operation.