virtualbox.org

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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