virtualbox.org

Can a VM be safely cloned while stopped in the 'Saved State' and not the
'Powered Off' state?

Windows host. VirtualBox 2.2.0.


VBoxManage.exe clonehd /path/name.vdi /path/new_name.vdi

People have cloned the drive even when they had snapshosts, though those snapshots weren't in the clone. It's always best to have a clean shutdown of the VM, but a clone of a saved state VM will boot as if the machine had a power failure. You can try, it shouldn't harm the original file.

Hi,
I'm not that expert in VB, but at least in theory it should be possible to make a clone of a VM at any time, the source VM is "down".
It shouldn't matter what state the guest (VM) has inside it's plain file. As long as this file is not handled by VB or what ever application,
it's just a plain file. If the mentioned "source" VM is not corrupt and somehow startable, it also has a readable structure from VB's point of fiew
and so the clone-tool should be able to copy and modify the destinating clone-ID.

each VM, as long as it is somehow consistant and shutted down, is just a single bloody File's. Nothing more, nothing magic.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. If I find time this coming weekend I'll give this a try. If you, either of you, are interested in the results I'll post them here.