Can't Remove ISO from Virtual Device Manager

[pansophysr]

I had an ISO image that I no longer needed to be attached to an XP guest machine (Win 7 host), and just deleted the image from where it was mounted.

On subsequent starts of VB, I get a nag message saying that VB can't find the ISO, and opens the Virtual Device Manager. When I find the ISO in the list, both the Remove and Release options are grayed out. I placed another copy of the ISO in the mount location, mounted and dismounted the image, but nothing I have tried will allow me to get rid of this item. Both options continue to be grayed out.

Any suggestions as to how I get rid of this?

P.

[Sasquatch]

Do you have snapshots? If you do, then the ISO was mounted when you created a snapshot and is thus in the tree. This means you won't be able to remove the ISO until you actually unmount it from the snapshot, and that is only possible if it's the current state, which it isn't.

[vbox4me2]

You might need to edit the .xml/vbox files for this.

[pansophysr]

Deleting the entry for the ISO in VirtualBox.xml located in the x:\.virtualbox directory removes the entry from the list of selectable ISOs withing the VM, but does not remove the entry from the Virtual Device Manager.

Is there another XML file that need to be edited?

P.

[Sasquatch]

VirtualBox.xml has the Media Manager entries.

[pansophysr]

@ sasquatch

Well, I've tried attaching and detaching the ISO from the guest. The entry in VirtualBox.xml under "GUI/RecentListCD" will add and delete the entry from the list which shows up in the GUI, but this will not remove it from the Virtual Device Manager.

If I detach the ISO and mouse-over the entry in the entry in the Virtual Device Manager, it pops up an error 102 VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND. A little work with Google turns up a considerable number of entries for this, but usually with USB devices in Ubuntu or some other Linux host.

Still puzzled.

P.

[mpack]

Deleting the ISO from the media registry in VirtualBox.xml will leave the VM referencing an ISO that no longer exists, causing an error I think. You need to make a note of the UUID for that media in VirtualBox.xml, then remove all reference to that UUID from the VM xml, then you can remove the ISO from the media registry.

To complicate matters, the media registry in v4 now exists in two places: in VirtualBox.xml is the legacy (v3) media registry whose use will diminish in future. In the VM settings (.vbox) xml file is a new style "this VM only" media registry. By adding/removing the ISO from the current state I suspect you managed to add the ISO to the local registry.

The above suggests manual editing of xmls. Note however that you need some knowledge to do this correctly.

Finally, I have great words of wisdom and it is thus: stop using snapshots.

[pansophysr]

@mpack

Editing the ISO entry from both the vbox.xml and vbox.xml-prev took care of the V3 entries and doing the same thing in the *.vbox and *.vbox-prev files finally removed the entry from the Virtual Media Manager. I did not have to edit any of the UUID entries to achieve this.

Thanks to all who posted.

P.