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Clone and attach?
Posted: 29. May 2009, 10:02
by sansibarius
I just build a VirtualBox-virtual image. (Ver 2.2.2, Host Win XP, Guest Win 7RC)
Now I want to multiply this image for different testings.
I cloned the existing VDI-file using "vboxmanage clonehd ... ..." which results in a new VDI-file.
Now how to I attach the clone to VirtualBox so I can start it in VirtualBox??
Sorry I am just at a loss...
Thanks and rgds
Sansibarius
Re: Clone and attach?
Posted: 29. May 2009, 12:38
by mpack
As you know, "clonehd" only clones the hard disk, not the VM. To use the cloned VDI in a new VM you need to manually create a new VM then attach the cloned VDI to it.
Also, you need to make sure that all the settings in the new VM precisely match the settings you chose for the old VM. Keep memory size, hard disk controller type, and network card type the same.
You need to give thought to how you intend to use the clone. If you want the guest OS to be unable to tell that something changed then you need to make sure (in particular) that the network MAC addresses in the two VMs are identical. However this means that you can't run the two VMs at the same time. If you want to run the VMs at the same time then the MAC addresses must be different... but a Windows guest regards this as a suspicious hardware change, possibly requiring reactivation. Activation may not be a problem for a Win7 beta guest, but it is a problem for other Windows guests and presumably for Win7 in the future, and my answer is addressing that audience too.