Moving VM from VBoxPUEL to OSE

[vingfel]

Hello there,

If this topic was already discussed, then I mist it. Sorry.

I used VBox PUEL under WinXP to test it.

Now, I want to use Ubuntu as host. More precisely the Xubuntu 64bits v10.04.

I installed VBox OSE.
Copied the VDI von the XP box to the Xubuntu PC.
I recreated the VM:

W7
XP
Win Millenium
Xubuntu 10.04 32bit.

None of them boot.

Usually, they just hand with a black screen.
W7 goes in a reboot loop.
Only the XP VM tell me that there is a problem accessing the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory and that I need the original install CD to repair.
I suppose that there is a difference in virtualising the hard drive.

Is there a visualization difference between PUEL and OSE?
I remember I was able to copy XP and W7 VM VDI from a VBox PUEL under XP to a VBox OSE under a UBUNTU OSE under a netbook.

In this case, both VBox where on full 32bits OS & hardware.

Is there the fact that I move the VM from a 32 bit host to a 64 bit host?

In the future, I want to use VM on a 64bit Linux for the following reasons:
- Able to use more than the 4[Gb] limitation from 32 bit.
- Linux is free.

I want to use VBox, because I use the PUEL version (WinXP) from some time now.

All I so is only for personal use, but I like the idea that I could use my solution for some small professional I know.

What do you think?

Thank you for your help.

Vincent

[mpack]

Copying the VDI should work and recreating the VM around it should work fine, provided there are no snapshots involved.

You do however need to make sure that the hardware in the new VM is exactly the same as the old VM. In particular, the IDE controller type and the IO APIC setting (your black screen issue sounds like an IO APIC setting error). For Windows guests I also recommend making sure the MAC address on the virtual network card is unchanged, to reduce the chances of provoking a reactivation message.