virtualbox.org

Hi,

I have a VM with WinXP as guest OS, with 1 snapshot.
currently main hdd vdi file gets corrupted by faulty hdd.

Are any ways to extract files from snapshot vdi file, as it was made from the clear OS and contains all the needed files?


Thanks for any help.

I'm afraid not. What you call a "snapshot vdi" does not contain complete files, it only contains fragments of files (disk sectors) modified since the last snapshot. Even if some files were rewritten completely, it is almost certain that parts of the filesystem were not - hence the snapshot vdi can't give you access even to those. All of the files in a snapshot chain are needed to make a single usable disk, corruption to any one file in the chain will effectively corrupt all of later "dependant" VDIs too. Corrupt the base VDI and you lose the lot - unless you were wise enough to take backups.

Snapshots are inherently risky, which is why many experienced users avoid them. If you want to create a restore point then take a little longer to make a proper backup.

oh, that's bad

thanks for your answer