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How to copy a built Virtual Machine from 1 PC to other one?

Posted: 26. Nov 2008, 11:17
by GammX1
I have craated a VirtualBox Machine with WinXP Home inside in my home PC and I need to copy it to my office one... To be able to work whit it, there, independently.
- Other important point is to keep 1 copy of it as a backup... And being able to restore it if a crash should happens on any of both PC's.
Thanks in advance for your help...
Rgrds,
GammX1

Posted: 26. Nov 2008, 12:49
by Sasquatch
Just copy the VDI file to any external media that has the proper File System to support the file size. You can then transfer the VDI back and forth between the two machines. You can even set VB to use the VDI directly from the external storage, given that it gets the same drive letter each time.

Posted: 26. Nov 2008, 18:36
by GammX1
First of all, thanks for your help!!

I can see your recomendations will work if a USB portable HD should be available... (if no other way, I will get one for that job!)

I simulated the possibility to copy the created VB machine from the Home PC to the office one but I am receiving errors messages about UUID !? and with a .xml file

How I should be able to restore a buckup copy of a VB Machine if I should have a crash problem?

Your help again.. will very welcome,
Thanks in advance,
Rgrds
GammX1

Posted: 26. Nov 2008, 20:43
by vbox4me2
Sasquatch wrote:Just copy the VDI file to any external media that has the proper File System to support the file size. You can then transfer the VDI back and forth between the two machines.
And this works like a charm, a side question, there used to be a program that copies changes by copying blocks(md5 check), do you have any idea what this was called? I now have 20gB of VDI's and backing them up to a server takes a little while....(ahum)

Posted: 26. Nov 2008, 22:50
by Sasquatch
GammX1 wrote:First of all, thanks for your help!!

I can see your recomendations will work if a USB portable HD should be available... (if no other way, I will get one for that job!)

I simulated the possibility to copy the created VB machine from the Home PC to the office one but I am receiving errors messages about UUID !? and with a .xml file

How I should be able to restore a buckup copy of a VB Machine if I should have a crash problem?

Your help again.. will very welcome,
Thanks in advance,
Rgrds
GammX1
UUID errors should only occur if you register a VDI that has the same UUID which is already registered. You have to either copy the VDI over the old one, or unregister the conflicting one. You can also generate a new UUID by issueing an undocumented command from a command prompt. I'm not 100% sure about it, but it used to be something like vboxmanage internalcommand setuuid <filename>. Check the search or Tutorial: All about VDIs for the proper command.
And this works like a charm, a side question, there used to be a program that copies changes by copying blocks(md5 check), do you have any idea what this was called? I now have 20gB of VDI's and backing them up to a server takes a little while....(ahum)
That method is not recommended, because, even though the chances are small, it can generate the wrong data to match the MD5 hash.