virtualbox.org

Hi all.

I have the windows XP guest, which I've created long-long time ago, with 1.x version of the VBox.

This guest uses differencing hard disk, which I have set to 50Gb. I have created and deleted several snapshots, and now the virtual machine uses about 30Gb more than it should.

The respective part of the VirtualBox.xml looks like this

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<HardDisks>
   <HardDisk uuid="{02bf0d9b-c958-422c-8d85-f097868f4b57}" location="VDI/windoz.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal">
       <HardDisk uuid="{bd6e5cba-054d-4d8a-b7a4-1379735ba295}" location="Machines/windows/Snapshots/{bd6e5cba-054d-4d8a-b7a4-1379735ba295}.vdi" format="VDI">
        <HardDisk uuid="{bffa10a7-1898-482d-9e2e-d6fd5405af5b}" location="/home/wl/.VirtualBox/Machines/windows/Snapshots/{bffa10a7-1898-482d-9e2e-d6fd5405af5b}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
        </HardDisk>
   </HardDisk>
</HardDisks>

I am trying to get back these gigabytes without reinstalling windows and all software inside it.
Currently I don't have any saved snapshots.

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VBoxManage modifyhd windoz.vdi --compact

has already saved me several Gb.

However, the Virtual Media Manager shows that the disk bd6e5cba-054d-4d8a-b7a4-1379735ba295 is not attached to any snapshots and doesn't allow to delete it.

I have searched the internet and found that clonehd can help me.

I tried several variants:

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VBoxManage clonehd windoz.vdi windows1.vdi
VBoxManage clonehd bd6e5cba-054d-4d8a-b7a4-1379735ba295 windows1.vdi  # not attached .vdi
VBoxManage clonehd bffa10a7-1898-482d-9e2e-d6fd5405af5b windows1.vdi     # .vdi, attached to the current state
VBoxManage clonehd ~/.VirtualBox/machines/Snapshots/{bffa10a7-1898-482d-9e2e-d6fd5405af5b}.vdi windows1.vdi # again, current state vdi, but with the full path

However, all of them produced unusable image.

OS didn't boot from it. If I attach this newly produced image to the existing windows guest as the primary slave, checkdisk founds many many file system errors, fixes them, but OS doesn't boot anyway.

I am using PUEL VirtualBox, version 2.2.2, my host is Ubuntu 8.10, 32-bit, and by guest is Windows XP SP3.
Of course, I have defragmented the guest's hard drive before the operation.

Hm...
I forgot to mention, that I created a new virtual machine and tried to boot this newly created one.
If I replace the hard disk image in my existing VM with the clone, it boots.

If it works with the old machine that was created with an earlier VB and not in a new machine then its probably some machine setting.
One that many misses is type of ide controller. Also check networkcard types all settings under advanced acpi,io apic et.al.

Yes, the IDE controller type was the culprit.

virtualbox.org

How to properly use clonehd option?

How to properly use clonehd option?

Re: How to properly use clonehd option?

Re: How to properly use clonehd option?

Re: How to properly use clonehd option?