Anyway to access data from a broken vdi installation ???

This is for discussing general topics about how to use VirtualBox.
Post Reply
Vespino
Posts: 10
Joined: 16. Dec 2010, 02:28
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: WinXP

Anyway to access data from a broken vdi installation ???

Post by Vespino »

After trying to delete 2 snapshots my WinXP VM wouldn't start anymore.

Is there anyway or a program to browse and/or get access to data, files, folders of a broken .vdi installation ?
BillG
Volunteer
Posts: 5106
Joined: 19. Sep 2009, 04:44
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Anyway to access data from a broken vdi installation ???

Post by BillG »

I think the simplest way is to add the .vdi file as an extra disk to a running vm.
Bill
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39134
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Anyway to access data from a broken vdi installation ???

Post by mpack »

How did you attempt to delete snapshots? If you mean manually deleting (via the host OS) the subsidiary {1234.abcd.etc}.vdi files then the data is gone, unless you had backups, and recovery is probably difficult even then. No off the shelf tool can substitute for the expertise needed to recover data from a trashed drive. As BillG suggests, you can try attaching the base VDI to another VM - but that only allows access to whatever data is now in the base VM, and I can't predict what that is without knowing more about how you did the damage.
Post Reply