IMPORT VM AFTER FORMATTING HOST MACHINE

[fellowsh]

Dear all, I run XP-PRO 64 on my PC and I created 2 VMs (XP32 and UBUNTU9) using VM version 2.
I then formatted the host machine as I do annually to keep it in good shape. The disk where I had stored both \.VirtualBox\Machines and \.VirtualBox\HardDisks has not been affected by the format as they were on a separate internal disk.
I have now reinstalled the Host OS and VM which now is version 2.2
I am not finding any way to sort of "import" the old virtual machines as I had left them before.
Please bear in mind that I am a newbie at virtualization so please let me know if I neglected to include important details to describe the situation.
Kind regards
R

[Techno.Scavenger]

Do you have the old virtualbox.xml?

If yes, just copy if over to the default location normally C:\Users\<username>\.virtualbox\.

If not, then you have to reconstruct the xml file by reversing the snapshots and UUID of the hard disks. This is time consuming process.

Regards,
Technos.

[fellowsh]

Thank you for your kind reply technos
I did not keep the original virtualbox.xml although I have a specific one for the old VMs in their relative locations XP32.xml under F:\.VirtualBox\Machines\XP32 and UBUNTU9.xml under F:\.VirtualBox\Machines\UBUNTU9.
Do you thinks it will be faster to simply re-install them rather than reconstructing the xml since I have no idea how to do it?
I mean, Ubuntu would be very quick while XP32 will take a long long time
Thx
r

[vbox4me2]

Re-create the VM's with the same settings and attach the VM images.

[Techno.Scavenger]

If you have snapshots, then it is not as easy as saying import/attach the .vdi.

Is it difficult? not really. Create a new vm. Use it as your template. Reconstruct your snapshots and definitions using the template. This instruction is very high level but hope you get the idea.

Regards,
Technos

[fellowsh]

Thank you all for the kind replies.
vbox4me2 can u elaborate a bit further? I have tried creating a new VM with similar settings but I cannot remember the exact (for instance) disk size or ram memory to be allocated to the guest....how can I "attach" the VM?

Techno, unfortunately I never took any snapshots.....
Thx
r

[vbox4me2]

Look at all the VM settings, the harddisk for example.