Create a new VM, import .vhd error

[jonsof]

Hello again.

I am trying to import my labs in virtualbox , as reproducing them in Hyper-V is too much of a hassle (partioning, dual boot, etc).You see I am a minimalistic person after all and prefer simplicity that works.

Anyway, I followed the standard procedure creating a new VM and configuring it, but when I try to add the vhd to the media manager I get an error.Naturally the vhd is outside the vbox xml file and it should get his entry there afterwards .Stil I get this error of medium not existing in the xml at the early stage of VM creation.

For more details take a look here:http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/4381/x2010labimp.png

Can I get over this without having to manually edit the xml? Or am I missing something obvious maybe?

Thanks.

[mpack]

The error means that the VHD you are trying to attach is not stand-alone; it is part of a snapshot tree or other differencing disk hierarchy, and you are missing the parent disk(s). The easiest solution for you I think is to, from within the existing Hyper-V VMs, run a disk imaging app and copy the disk image to a shared folder. That disk image will be stand alone and can be "restored" into a VirtualBox VM. For Windows guests the free Disk2VHD tool makes imaging the drive particularly easy.

[jonsof]

Hello mpack.

What you propose seems the simplest way of doing things.In fact though I copied both the base images and the snapshots with the intention of installing them and practicing in home - I am not able to go back there and do all this through Hyper-V.My course is over.

Do you think there is a way of doing things in vbox?

Thanks for replying.

[mpack]

I suspect you do not in fact have the real base image, I suspect your "base" might just be a reference to a Hyper-V standard Win7 base which you don't have. In any case no, I do not know of a way to repair a Hyper-V VM that uses VHD snapshots when the links between snapshots have been broken.

I also should have mentioned before: Win7 will almost certainly require to be reactivated on the new virtual platform. For this you need an internet or phone connection and the serial number off the CD/DVD case: and of course it means identifying yourself as the owner of this license. I didn't mention this before was I assumed that none of it would be a problem.

[jonsof]

AFAIK the base images are various predefined windows OS setups that corespond to each course machine.They are all put in a folder named BASE and have similar names like Base08A, Base08B, etc
I also have the mid tier machines (something like Vbox snapshots I believe).
Then a symlink creation procedure takes place, so that machines are imported to the Hyper-V console, through them.

I couldnt find any clue on how to do things on Vbox, so I had to set up (currently logged in) a Server 2008R2 enviroment with the Hyper-V role.In fact I spent the whole day yesterday, to bypass many little culprits, finally making to the point of taking a full back up of the new installation.
Since I am on wireless, I had a funny time reading about Hyper-V's inability to use the wifi interface directly, thus having me to set up a RRAS.

There are no legal issues here as all machines are like trial versions.No keys needed, just the 240 evaluation period is used.To give you a better picture in the labs we did, all windows had black background desktops.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

PS- I may try to extract a a couple of VHDs through Hyper-V and pass them to Vbox, just for testing purposes.In theory all should go well.

[mpack]

Well, it should be easy enough to verify: download the CloneVDI tool (see sticky in "Windows Hosts" forum), and use it to open up the base VHD. If CloneVDI complains about not supporting differencing disks then it is not a true base VHD.