Moving VBox installations to a different operating system

[harisund]

Hello!

I am currently having Windows XP and Ubuntu-10.04 guests. There are various snapshots of each operating system, and in a multilevel tree structure.

The harddisk in my laptop seems to be failing, so I plan on replacing it. However, this time, instead of my Windows 7 host, I plan on installing Ubuntu-10.04 instead.

I want to continue having my Windows XP and Ubuntu-10.04 guests on my new host as well. What's the best way to go about doing it? Is this what the "export/import" options are for? Will they recognize my snapshots as well? (Note: I plan on backing up everything in my external hard disk)

Thank you!

[Perryg]

Exporting will merge the snapshots and leave you with one flat file. (no snap shots any more)
Backup is always a good idea, but I think you will find that trying to restore (with snapshots) to a different architecture is going to be difficult to impossible. IMHO.
If however there are no snap shots then I move the VDI files between Windows, Linux, & Unix systems everyday.

[Sasquatch]

I wouldn't call the transition from a Windows Host to a Linux impossible, but it does require a lot of work and trial and error. So, work on a copy and keep an unmodified backup in a safe place. Now what you need to do, is create a new VM on an empty VB configuration. Install an OS or whatever and create a snapshot with it. Now you have the base to start modifying your backup (a copy of course). You will have to modify all the XML files from the backup copy to make it match the newly created VB configuration, because there are some vital differences between Windows and Linux, like audio system, paths and such.
Once you got that all done, move the configuration you created as blueprint to a backup location, then copy the backup to the old location of the new config. The default is ~/.VirtualBox. This is a hidden folder in your home. Do another check on the XML files so that everything matches to the new situation. Start VB and keep your fingers crossed. Hopefully, it will show you all the VMs with their snapshots and no error. If you did something wrong, you will get an error message and you have to fix that.

In the end you will have three copies of your configuration: one backup, one you worked on and one in the new location to check for errors which you will replace with the work-in-progress copy when it fails beyond repair.

[Perryg]

Like I said difficult to impossible .

[Sasquatch]

Nothing is impossible . Just extremely difficult and very error prone.

[harisund]

thank you

obviously, this is not a everyday thing, so i do not mind spending some time playing around trying to re-create the same setup on a different os !!!

Thanks again