VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

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AntiMatter
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VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by AntiMatter »

Hi,

Using VirtualBox 2.24 on WinXP host. I would like to clone a VDI to another VDI. The origin VDI is a monolothic VDI file of about 10 GB in size. I would like to have the target VDI to be split into 2 GBs chunks using the --variant Split2G option. I guess this option is the equivalent of VMWare's vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -t 1 (which means, disk type 1, growable virtual disk split in 2Gb files). Basically this means if the monolithic VDI file size is 10.5 GB, when it is split into 2 GB chunks, it would becomes 6 files (2 x 5 of 2 GB and the 6th is 0.5 GB). For this I used the following command:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" clonehd MyMonolithicGuest.vdi NewGuest.vdi --format VDI --variant Split2G
The operation was successful but the NewGuest.vdi is still a monolithic VDI file of almost the same size than the original MyMonolithicGuest.vdi

Question1: What is the purpose of the Split2G option? There is no description in the 2.24 User Manual.

Question2: Is VirtualBox capable of splitting a VDI file into several 2GB chunks, similar to VMWare type 1 disk (growable virtual disk split in 2Gb files) ?

Thanks in advance for any help.
baf
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by baf »

I think that the split2G only works for vmdk files. Also this is a new option and I'm not sure if it works.
But you could try creating a new vmdk and move your machine to that with something like CloneZilla.

This should work I think.
VBoxManage createhd --filename <filename> --size 10000 --format VMDK --variant Split2G --remember

Good Luck
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AntiMatter
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by AntiMatter »

At the moment, I don't think that VirtualBox is fully compatible with VMDK disk format. I took an original VMDK (monolithic single file), removed VMWare Tools, and ran it under VirtualBox 2.2.4, installed VBX Guest Additions. The VM could boot but the mouse cursor is frozen in the middle of the screen. I had reported it in v2.22, repeated again for 2.24 but so far no answer.

I ended up recreating the VM from scratch in VDI native format. Now that I am done with the VDI "template" I wanted to clone it to make several other VDIs. Checking the VBoxManage & documentation to verify the syntax and I discovered the Split2G option.

I would like to know more about this Split2G option before I clone or create more VDIs.
baf
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by baf »

Well as far as I have seen, VirtualBox works fine with several kinds of vmdk (all I have tried). But you can still have a problem with the content of a vmdk. What I mean is a machine installed in vmware may be totally unusable if you move that vmdk to virtualbox but you will have access to files and everything from virtualbox.
Hope you understand what I mean.
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AntiMatter
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by AntiMatter »

baf wrote:What I mean is a machine installed in vmware may be totally unusable if you move that vmdk to virtualbox but you will have access to files and everything from virtualbox.
There is plenty of ways to read the content of a VMDK. Unfortunately, what I needed was OS + Content. I needed the Guest OS to work, with all the basic devices. However, this is now history for me as I have recreated the VM in native VDI format. Now what I need to know is clarification about the Split2G option of VBoxManage.exe.
baf
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by baf »

As I wrote
Split2G is most likely only for vmdk-format.
And splitting a file to that format does not work for me but I can create and use a split vmdk with that command I gave.
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AntiMatter
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by AntiMatter »

Thanks baf, for your input. Any official comment from VirtualBox dev team on the Split2G option?
baf
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by baf »

You could file a bug in the bugtracker about it's missing in the docs.
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by AntiMatter »

Excerpted from VirtualBox 3.0 UserGuide: http://dlc-cdn-rd.sun.com/c1/virtualbox ... 7ac97dee05
variant: Allow to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a commaseparated
list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will result in an error message.
It's not clearer. Now that v3.0 has been release, hope that the dev team will have some time to update the user manual. Have submitted a requet in VirtualBox Bug Tracker.
adamd
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by adamd »

Hi,
I want to hold vm data on a fat32 usb drive, so I want to use the split2G feature. So I ran this;
VBoxManage createhd --filename solaris10_1.vmdk --size 10000 --format vmdk --variant Split2G --remember

It creates the files as expected. I add this as IDE disk as normal to a Solaris host and attempt to install but I get disk sector errors.

The installer loads and scrolling errors onto the screen about sector access (see screenshot).

This is from the vbox log also;

00:00:00.870 VDInit finished
00:00:00.885 PIIX3 ATA: LUN#0: disk, PCHS=16383/16/63, total number of sectors 32768000
00:00:00.885 PIIX3 ATA: LUN#1: no unit
00:00:00.885 PIIX3 ATA: LUN#2: CD/DVD, total number of sectors 1137920, passthrough disabled
00:00:00.885 PIIX3 ATA: LUN#3: no unit
00:00:00.885 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: finished processing RESET
00:00:00.985 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#1: finished processing RESET
...
00:01:26.704 Guest Log: BIOS: int13_harddisk: function 02, parameters out of range 0000/0000/0001!
.......................(about 15 repeats)
00:01:26.710 Guest Log: BIOS: int13_harddisk: function 02, parameters out of range 0000/0000/0001!

I have seen some similar windows posts, but the problem was related to bad media. This is Solaris 10 u7 dvd iso and md5sum matches sun.com download. I upgraded to 3.0.0 but no change in behaviour.

Similar errors occur when I load the disk into a livecd booted from iso.

Any ideas?
Attachments
Errors on screen when loading Solaris Installer
Errors on screen when loading Solaris Installer
ata_error.jpg (87.31 KiB) Viewed 13231 times
adamd
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by adamd »

Turns out, Split2G is not implemented in VirtualBox (ref http://www.virtualbox.de/ticket/3802 ) - however they can be used when they were created in vmware.
(eg VBoxManage createhd vmdk with Split2G did not work -- although it did create the files)


So I did that and it worked first time...

bin/vmware-vdiskmanager -c -s 20GB -a ide -t 1 disk1.vmdk

Then selected this in disk manager, started vm and away it went.

This at least allowed me to have vm disks of 20G size on a fat32 usbdrive without having many 4G disks attached to my vms.
deoren
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by deoren »

Is there any sort of an ETA or priority on adding Split2G support? After reading the manual about how not all combinations are supported:
Allows to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will result in an error message.
I would have expected a warning of some sort telling me that Split2G wasn't supported yet. It created fine but attempting to install an OS resulted in disk read errors:
00:02:06.708 PIIX3 ATA: LUN#0: disk read error (rc=VERR_OUT_OF_RANGE iSector=0x13877ff cSectors=0x1)
I guess I'm posting this for others searching for the error, as support for Split2G will show up when it's implemented and not before. I'm not familiar with the community, but is it considered acceptable to open a bug report requesting that feature?

Thanks.
hakre
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by hakre »

I'm running over a similar problem while I wanted to convert a VDI image as well, but only between the "builtin" variants Standard and Fixed. I think the best is to document as correct as possible here in the forums (thread is: How to convert a VDI fixed to VDI standard?).
SecretCode
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Re: VBoxManage clonehd --variant Split2G not working

Post by SecretCode »

I raised a bug on this - http://www.virtualbox.de/ticket/4628

If it's not supported it should say so rather than failing later!
Commands with --variant Split2G should fail with an error message.
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