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I am using VirtualBox version 5.2.22 and have some important work missing when I start the Ubuntu 16.04 machine. I believe the problem is that the work is in a snapshot which is not attached to the machine. (screen shot attached). I have tried to attach the log as suggested but it is too big 161K.

I would like to understand how I can access this detached snapshot to reclaim my lost work. Can you please help?

Zipped logs will fit, but the guest's .vbox file will help better.

Right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list, choose Show in Explorer/Finder/File Manager. Zip the guest's .vbox file, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

Thank you for your help, zipped log and .vbox attached.

Can you also please post a screenshot of the Snapshots tab for this guest? Select the guest, click the 3-dots 3-bars icon at the end of the guest tile, click Snapshots, post that view please.

Sorry I don't see the dots but have posted a view. Is this what you need?
I doo seem to remember others being listed at some stage and do not understand where they have gone.

Thanks. The screenshot matches what I see in the .vbox file, and though the main Virtualbox window apparently doesn't have a way to load the desired "current state" file, there may be a way to manually do it.

Here's the pertinent .vbox data:

<Machine uuid="{52bb8860-e032-4812-9317-555bbff335aa}" name="Ubuntu 16.04" OSType="Ubuntu_64" currentSnapshot="{5ad7ed87-8a0a-4c1a-9c0d-63da85a06dc3}" snapshotFolder="Snapshots" lastStateChange="2020-10-16T11:10:16Z">
    <MediaRegistry>
      <HardDisks>
        <HardDisk uuid="{00284c69-9bb7-46a1-b570-af5e9a926dbf}" location="D:/Ubuntu 16.04.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal">
          <HardDisk uuid="{6c93e58e-a225-433c-962a-14585e1654fb}" location="Snapshots/{6c93e58e-a225-433c-962a-14585e1654fb}.vdi" format="VDI">
            <HardDisk uuid="{7d15349c-ef05-468f-9fd5-a8e45f9b92b0}" location="Snapshots/{7d15349c-ef05-468f-9fd5-a8e45f9b92b0}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
            <HardDisk uuid="{bc727630-cb1a-4264-93ab-b8e2f0908a83}" location="Snapshots/{bc727630-cb1a-4264-93ab-b8e2f0908a83}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
          </HardDisk>
        </HardDisk>
      </HardDisks>
    </MediaRegistry>
    <Snapshot uuid="{00464dd0-01ec-407a-9756-22e72b300e82}" name="PPSnapshot" timeStamp="2020-02-26T14:54:24Z" stateFile="Snapshots/2020-02-26T14-54-24-769876900Z.sav">
      <StorageControllers>
        <StorageController name="SATA" type="AHCI" PortCount="1" useHostIOCache="false" Bootable="true" IDE0MasterEmulationPort="0" IDE0SlaveEmulationPort="1" IDE1MasterEmulationPort="2" IDE1SlaveEmulationPort="3">
          <AttachedDevice type="HardDisk" hotpluggable="false" port="0" device="0">
            <Image uuid="{00284c69-9bb7-46a1-b570-af5e9a926dbf}"/>
          </AttachedDevice>
        </StorageController>
      </StorageControllers>
      <Snapshots>
        <Snapshot uuid="{5ad7ed87-8a0a-4c1a-9c0d-63da85a06dc3}" name="ForPedro" timeStamp="2020-02-27T11:41:38Z" stateFile="Snapshots/2020-02-27T11-41-38-502256100Z.sav">
          <StorageControllers>
            <StorageController name="SATA" type="AHCI" PortCount="1" useHostIOCache="false" Bootable="true" IDE0MasterEmulationPort="0" IDE0SlaveEmulationPort="1" IDE1MasterEmulationPort="2" IDE1SlaveEmulationPort="3">
              <AttachedDevice type="HardDisk" hotpluggable="false" port="0" device="0">
                <Image uuid="{6c93e58e-a225-433c-962a-14585e1654fb}"/>
              </AttachedDevice>
            </StorageController>
          </StorageControllers>
        </Snapshot>
      </Snapshots>
    </Snapshot>
    <StorageControllers>
      <StorageController name="SATA" type="AHCI" PortCount="1" useHostIOCache="false" Bootable="true" IDE0MasterEmulationPort="0" IDE0SlaveEmulationPort="1" IDE1MasterEmulationPort="2" IDE1SlaveEmulationPort="3">
        <AttachedDevice type="HardDisk" hotpluggable="false" port="0" device="0">
          <Image uuid="{bc727630-cb1a-4264-93ab-b8e2f0908a83}"/>
        </AttachedDevice>
      </StorageController>
    </StorageControllers>
  </Machine>

There's the base disk 0028 before all the snapshots, referenced in Snapshot "PPSnapshot".
Then the first child disk 6c93 in the active snapshot "ForPedro". This first child disk has two "grandchildren" Current State disks.
The active current state disk bc72 is loaded in the guest's active drive.
The other child disk 7d15 is the one you want to try.

It seems to me that since the base and first child are behind the current state, it should be possible to simply edit the .vbox file with the other current state disk loaded:

The attached .vbox file is with the current state 7d15 loaded. No other changes were made.

To use it, reboot your host so no Virtualbox windows or processes are running. This file has to be put in while the VboxSVC service process is not active.

Go to the "Ubuntu 16.04" folder where you found the .vbox file before. Rename the .vbox file there now to "Ubuntu 16.04.vbox-oldstate". Bring in the zipped .vbox file attached.

Now try the guest and see if the files you need are present.

Thank you very much!!!
That enabled me to get back the previous work I had done. Just one more question please.

These snapshots are confusing for me and take lots of space on my C drive. I would prefer if these were just included in the main vdi which is hosted on a different drive.

Is there an easy way to do this?

Yes, that's the next thing I was going to point out.

First, make a complete backup, while the guest is fully shut down. Copy the whole "Ubuntu 16.04" including the Snapshots subfolder, and the "D:/Ubuntu 16.04.vdi" to separate media, so if any of this goes wrong, you can recover.

Next, While the guest is fully shut down, right-click the guest and choose Move. Select a folder on the D drive, not the D drive root itself. After the move is complete, all the guest files should be off the C drive and in the folder on the D drive.

Next, go to the Virtual Media Manager shown in your first screenshot, select the "Ubuntu 16.04.vdi" disk file, click Move, and move the disk file into the guest folder on the D drive.

Now the guest vbox file, base disk "Ubuntu 16.04.vdi", and the Snapshots folder should be together inside the "Ubuntu 16.04" guest folder. This guest folder is the entire guest and can now be backed up very easily with a simple file copy & FC file-compare to confirm backup integrity, and could be taken to any capable host PC regardless of supported host OS and registered.

If you run into trouble, let us know.

Finally, you need to ask yourself if you even want the snapshots anymore. If not, we can collapse them. Snapshots make a guest more delicate.

I the main dvi is already on D and I would like to collapse the snapshots so I don't have any and everything is in the main dvi.
How do I perform the collapse operation?

I will make sure all is backed up ahead of time.

Collapsing would be better, good.

After the backup, in the Snapshots view in your second screenshot, select each snapshot, "PPSnapshot" first, then "ForPedro" (*), one at a time, and click "Delete" on the toolbar above. Delete merges the snapshot disk data back into its parent disk and only "deletes" the ability to pull up that snapshot in the future.

* It usually doesn't matter what order the snapshots are deleted. However, deleting a snapshot where both parent and child disk files are on the same physical disk may be slower if the disk is a platter disk, than deleting where the parent is on a different disk than the child, such as in your case.

Once you get to seeing only Current State, everything should be in "D:/Ubuntu 16.04.vdi". Then do the guest move to the D drive and the disk file move into the guest folder to consolidate the guest to the optimum backup-able format.

What a star, thank you so much for your time and support.

One additional hint: In the original (damaged) setup, you had two "grandchildren" disk files, both over 10 GB large. Both contain changes to the 'ForPedro' state. So you maybe should check that you have saved all important data before eliminating the backup of those files.

fth0 has a really good point. If you take your backup files and put the base vdi in the same folder as the Snaphots vdi's, you can use Mpack's CloneVDI to clone the 7d15 and bc72 disk files (check Generate New UUID) to new clone vdi's containing the two entire diverging disk structures, which can be attached to a guest as secondary drives to get files out of either or both final Current States.

Looking at the two grandchildren vdi's the one I was originally running with is a slightly older one than I wanted to run with. All the files included in the older one are present in the one I am running now. The snapshots are all backed up as they were and I have now collapsed the running copy.

Thank you both for your support.