Freeing space from my home directory by moving vdi?

[robbyx]

I think things have gone wrong.

I went into the V Media Manager and following your advice was able to find the hidden directory and the vdi within it. After adding it in I expected to see it appear in the control pannel but there is nothing there.

screenshot_005.png (100.7 KiB) Viewed 1295 times

[Sasquatch]

A VDI is not the same as a VM. The VM holds the configuration and everything, the VDI only the data of the OS that's installed on it. The Media Manager is just what it says, media only.

We've been trying this for almost a week, you could have moved the bunch and changed the files in a few minutes.

[robbyx]

I agree and now I am stuck because it will not appear in the load area of the control panel. hank you for your patience, I thought I was doing best and cutting down the risk of error. In fact because of the length of our correspondence I went back to your original idea and did not try to combine the two but just moved the complete .VirtualBox directory to the new location and tried to change the internal settings. Please do no give up on me as I need VB working.

Robin

[Sasquatch]

So you still have all the original files? That's great . Now, if you change the files on the new location so they all have the location references to the proper files, move the VirtualBox.xml file back to your ~/.VirtualBox folder. You can also set a system variable, VBOX_USER_HOME, but I prefer this method as I know it will work (I do about the same). You can also create a symbolic link instead of copying the xml file.

[robbyx]

There is an error on loading as can be seen from the first picture. I am not clear as what the IMachine reference refers.

screenshot_002.png (37.88 KiB) Viewed 1279 times

Next I show the contents of .Virtualbox because I am surprised at the mismatch in the names between the vdi name(Win2knew.vdi) and the snapshot parent director name (Win 2k). I extracted a backup of the same directory from June and it too had the same structure and it was working then.

screenshot_003.png (111.04 KiB) Viewed 1280 times

In case you need it this is my win2knew.vdi

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.6-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.5-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.4-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.3-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.3.pre-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.2-linux' -->
<!-- innotek VirtualBox Global Configuration -->
<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.innotek.de/VirtualBox-settings" version="1.7-linux">
  <Global>
    <ExtraData>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LicenseAgreed" value="7"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/RegistrationData" value="00720073007c00720067007300400063007200650061007300650068007500670067006500740074002e0063006f002e0075006b007c007900650073790addb0"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastWindowPostion" value="1,20,581,235,max"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastVMSelected" value="{e3f29267-5d6c-4784-45b0-27e1362f06af}"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/SuppressMessages" value="remindAboutMouseIntegrationOn,remindAboutAutoCapture,confirmGoingFullscreen,confirmGoingSeamless,confirmInputCapture,remindAboutMouseIntegrationOff"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/UpdateDate" value="1 d, 2009-09-15"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/UpdateCheckCount" value="128"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Input/HostKey" value="65507"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Input/AutoCapture" value="true"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/MaxGuestResolution" value="auto"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/TrayIcon/Enabled" value="false"/>
    </ExtraData>
    <MachineRegistry>
      <MachineEntry uuid="{e3f29267-5d6c-4784-45b0-27e1362f06af}" src="Machines/Win2k/Win2k.xml"/>
    </MachineRegistry>
    <MediaRegistry>
      <HardDisks>
        <HardDisk uuid="{57eb3c17-34e7-40cc-93b2-d0ca3aeeea4c}" location="/media/mydocs/.VirtualBox/Win2knew.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal">
          <HardDisk uuid="{7127e9fd-0755-4d86-f8b0-b42d2cbb37b1}" location="Machines/Win2k/Snapshots/{7127e9fd-0755-4d86-f8b0-b42d2cbb37b1}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
          <HardDisk uuid="{0d374e67-7727-4dbe-a7b1-66ccb2d578ed}" location="/media/mydocs/.VirtualBox/Machines/Win2k/Snapshots/{0d374e67-7727-4dbe-a7b1-66ccb2d578ed}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
        </HardDisk>
      </HardDisks>
      <DVDImages>
        <Image uuid="{d2616114-b26b-4df4-a29d-baa92b3ea8ca}" location="/usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso"/>
      </DVDImages>
      <FloppyImages/>
    </MediaRegistry>
    <NetserviceRegistry>
      <DHCPServers>
        <DHCPServer networkName="HostInterfaceNetworking-vboxnet0" IPAddress="192.168.56.2" networkMask="255.255.255.0" lowerIP="192.168.56.3" upperIP="192.168.56.255" enabled="1"/>
      </DHCPServers>
    </NetserviceRegistry>
    <USBDeviceFilters/>
    <SystemProperties defaultMachineFolder="Machines" defaultHardDiskFolder="HardDisks" defaultHardDiskFormat="VDI" remoteDisplayAuthLibrary="VRDPAuth" webServiceAuthLibrary="VRDPAuth" HWVirtExEnabled="true" LogHistoryCount="3"/>
  </Global>
</VirtualBox>

Just to complete the list here is the VirtualBox.xml

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.6-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.5-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.4-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.3-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.3.pre-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.2-linux' -->
<!-- innotek VirtualBox Global Configuration -->
<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.innotek.de/VirtualBox-settings" version="1.7-linux">
  <Global>
    <ExtraData>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LicenseAgreed" value="7"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/RegistrationData" value="00720073007c00720067007300400063007200650061007300650068007500670067006500740074002e0063006f002e0075006b007c007900650073790addb0"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastWindowPostion" value="1,20,581,235,max"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastVMSelected" value="{e3f29267-5d6c-4784-45b0-27e1362f06af}"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/SuppressMessages" value="remindAboutMouseIntegrationOn,remindAboutAutoCapture,confirmGoingFullscreen,confirmGoingSeamless,confirmInputCapture,remindAboutMouseIntegrationOff"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/UpdateDate" value="1 d, 2009-09-15"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/UpdateCheckCount" value="128"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Input/HostKey" value="65507"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Input/AutoCapture" value="true"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/MaxGuestResolution" value="auto"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/TrayIcon/Enabled" value="false"/>
    </ExtraData>
    <MachineRegistry>
      <MachineEntry uuid="{e3f29267-5d6c-4784-45b0-27e1362f06af}" src="Machines/Win2k/Win2k.xml"/>
    </MachineRegistry>
    <MediaRegistry>
      <HardDisks>
        <HardDisk uuid="{57eb3c17-34e7-40cc-93b2-d0ca3aeeea4c}" location="/media/mydocs/.VirtualBox/Win2knew.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal">
          <HardDisk uuid="{7127e9fd-0755-4d86-f8b0-b42d2cbb37b1}" location="Machines/Win2k/Snapshots/{7127e9fd-0755-4d86-f8b0-b42d2cbb37b1}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
          <HardDisk uuid="{0d374e67-7727-4dbe-a7b1-66ccb2d578ed}" location="/media/mydocs/.VirtualBox/Machines/Win2k/Snapshots/{0d374e67-7727-4dbe-a7b1-66ccb2d578ed}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
        </HardDisk>
      </HardDisks>
      <DVDImages>
        <Image uuid="{d2616114-b26b-4df4-a29d-baa92b3ea8ca}" location="/usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso"/>
      </DVDImages>
      <FloppyImages/>
    </MediaRegistry>
    <NetserviceRegistry>
      <DHCPServers>
        <DHCPServer networkName="HostInterfaceNetworking-vboxnet0" IPAddress="192.168.56.2" networkMask="255.255.255.0" lowerIP="192.168.56.3" upperIP="192.168.56.255" enabled="1"/>
      </DHCPServers>
    </NetserviceRegistry>
    <USBDeviceFilters/>
    <SystemProperties defaultMachineFolder="Machines" defaultHardDiskFolder="HardDisks" defaultHardDiskFormat="VDI" remoteDisplayAuthLibrary="VRDPAuth" webServiceAuthLibrary="VRDPAuth" HWVirtExEnabled="true" LogHistoryCount="3"/>
  </Global>
</VirtualBox>

Thank you again for your help,

Robin

[Sasquatch]

Change this entry in your VirtualBox.xml file

Code: Select all

    <MachineRegistry>
      <MachineEntry uuid="{e3f29267-5d6c-4784-45b0-27e1362f06af}" src="Machines/Win2k/Win2k.xml"/>
    </MachineRegistry>

It still has relative paths, these need to be absolute, because you moved the whole bunch. My VB.xml would have something like this:

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<MachineEntry uuid="{whatever}" src="/media/Extern/Virtual Machines/Win XP/Win XP.xml"/>

[robbyx]

Well done and thank you. I have just made the changes as suggested and it loaded without problem.

Robin