virtualbox.org

Hi,

I've recently installed VirtualBox 2.2.0, and create a SuSe 10 virtual machine with one hard disk to test. After I got everything set up, I shut down the machine, and exported it. I then deleted the machine, and the disks, and tried re-importing it.

It seemed to import ok, but when I try to start the machine I get an error:

Waiting for device /dev/disk-by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB55C12fb7-b7e87e87-part2 to appear

After a few seconds, I get kicked out to the root prompt. Any ideas what would cause this?

Thanks.

You might want to have a look at the VBox users guide. See sections below:

Chapter 3.8 especially the notes

Chapter 13 known issues.
<snip>
Some virtual machine properties supported by VirtualBox's own XML file format are not exported. As a result, when exporting and then re-importing a virtual machine with VirtualBox, the settings need not be identical. This is especially true for the I/O APIC setting, 3D acceleration, hardware virtualization, nested paging and other VM properties.
<snip>

Ok, not sure how this applies...the vm settings in the imported appliance are identical to when it was created. One would think that being able to import and image you just exported would be basic functionality.

Actually I was taking about this section.
<snip>
The OVF standard is complex, and support in VirtualBox is an ongoing process. In particular, no guarantee is made that VirtualBox supports all appliances created by other virtualization software. For a list of know limitations, please see
<snip>

Ok that being said I tested this out myself and it did in fact work. BUT not the first time. I intentionally left the old data on the hard drive to see what happened and it did not work right.

A few things that you may have missed since you were importing right back into the same machine is removing the exported information completely.

In the Virtual media manager you need to remove and delete the exported OS.
Go to your .virtualbox/machines and get rid of the folder that held the original install.

Also when I imported there were a few issues not really sure if they are important but the Shared folder was gone (expected this), APIC turned off when it was on, PAE turned off when it was on, and the guest type was not correct. Also the VT-x/AMD-v was checked on. Setting these to what they should have been allowed the guest to return to a stable state. All of this information showed as correct in the export GUI, but must have lost something in transfer.