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Power outage: now my vm and snapshot are unlisted!
Posted: 13. Jul 2010, 21:05
by mhernandez
Hi!
After a power outage virtualbox does not show the the VM nor the snapshot. I'm using virtualbox 3.2.4 on a windows server 2008.
I followed the instructions from previous post
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... age#p26272 but the snapshot I'm interested in is not listed but it does show on the Snapshots folder.
1. How should I restore the VM ? It doesn't show on the menu list after the outage.
2. Is there a way to check integrity with only the snapshot vid file? This way I know it's worth the time anyway.
Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. I've read the manual and using CLI
Re: Power outage: now my vm and snapshot are unlisted!
Posted: 13. Jul 2010, 21:33
by mhernandez
Here is my virtual box settings file. Unfortunately, it doesn't the "trac" VM on the GUI !
Code: Select all
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.innotek.de/VirtualBox-settings" version="1.10-windows">
<Global>
<ExtraData>
<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastVMSelected" value="9f61c3bb-359b-4a7c-b597-44aa04b8b2f6"/>
<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastWindowPostion" value="127,95,770,550,max"/>
<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/SuppressMessages" value=",remindAboutMouseIntegrationOff,remindAboutAutoCapture,confirmInputCapture"/>
<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/UpdateDate" value="1 d, 2010-07-12, stable"/>
</ExtraData>
<MachineRegistry>
<MachineEntry uuid="{9f61c3bb-359b-4a7c-b597-44aa04b8b2f6}" src="Machines\trac\trac.xml"/>
</MachineRegistry>
<MediaRegistry>
<HardDisks>
<HardDisk uuid="{77a0895b-1486-4100-a999-fe8522c2cf67}" location="C:\Users\Administrador\.VirtualBox\HardDisks\lvmcluster1.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal">
<HardDisk uuid="{581efeb5-8ed4-4d8d-985e-8aca226036be}" location="C:\Users\Administrador\.VirtualBox\Machines\trac\Snapshots\{581efeb5-8ed4-4d8d-985e-8aca226036be}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
</HardDisk>
</HardDisks>
<DVDImages/>
<FloppyImages/>
</MediaRegistry>
<NetserviceRegistry>
<DHCPServers>
<DHCPServer networkName="HostInterfaceNetworking-VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter" IPAddress="192.168.56.100" networkMask="255.255.255.0" lowerIP="192.168.56.101" upperIP="192.168.56.254" enabled="1"/>
</DHCPServers>
</NetserviceRegistry>
<SystemProperties defaultMachineFolder="Machines" defaultHardDiskFolder="HardDisks" defaultHardDiskFormat="VDI" remoteDisplayAuthLibrary="VRDPAuth" webServiceAuthLibrary="VRDPAuth" LogHistoryCount="3"/>
<USBDeviceFilters/>
</Global>
</VirtualBox>
Re: Power outage: now my vm and snapshot are unlisted!
Posted: 14. Jul 2010, 18:41
by mpack
It sounds like your VirtualBox.xml file has been damaged. Did you already try to restore it?
No guarantees, but you can try using the
CloneVDI tool to clone the latest snapshot file. Read the release notes carefully first, and I suggest you treat it as if the VirtualBox.xml file cannot be trusted. If it works then you'll have a single merged VDI file around which you can build a new VM.
Re: Power outage: now my vm and snapshot are unlisted!
Posted: 14. Jul 2010, 19:48
by sej7278
Lack of a journalised filesystem: another reason not to use windows to host vm's.
I've had two power cuts today, and didn't lose either of my running vm's on my linux host.
Re: Power outage: now my vm and snapshot are unlisted!
Posted: 14. Jul 2010, 22:09
by mpack
sej7278 wrote:Lack of a journalised filesystem: another reason not to use windows to host vm's.
I've had two power cuts today, and didn't lose either of my running vm's on my linux host.
Umm, NTFS is a journaling filesystem, and AFAIK had that feature before any version of Linux did. However that isn't a magic bullet, e.g. if an application keeps information in memory then there's nothing the filesystem can do about it.
Re: Power outage: now my vm and snapshot are unlisted!
Posted: 14. Jul 2010, 23:37
by sej7278
mpack wrote:Umm, NTFS is a journaling filesystem, and AFAIK had that feature before any version of Linux did. However that isn't a magic bullet, e.g. if an application keeps information in memory then there's nothing the filesystem can do about it.
as far as i recall the windows change journal is more of a caching mechanism for performance, not really a recovery system, certainly didn't work here did it?
snapshots are not memory-resident, if they're corrupt its down to the filesystem, unless the power outage happened at the exact moment virtualbox.xml was being updated before syncing memory to disk, that's down to the fs too.
anyway none of this is helping the op recover his snapshots. i'd say they are probably gone, but i expect you can recreate the vm and attach the vdi's to it.
Re: Power outage: now my vm and snapshot are unlisted!
Posted: 15. Jul 2010, 12:34
by mpack
sej7278 wrote:as far as i recall the windows change journal is more of a caching mechanism for performance, not really a recovery system
Windows has a cache to act as its "caching mechanism". Journalling is always about either preventing corruption or allowing corruption to be repaired easily - it serves no other practical purpose. However, as I implied before, journalling can't magically restore data that was never written, and I'd be rather surprised if Linux offered a better answer in that respect.
As to the op, he has already had a suggestion, so this thread is idling until he responds.