Export Appliance produce corrupt ova (VB 4.1.8)

[wabe]

I'm replacing a host machine containing one Vbox machine. In order to migrate the VM I'm exporting the applicance from the old machine and try to import the resulting .ova on the new host. The problem is that the ova refuse to import with error message that the ova contains a corrupt vmdk.
I've tried the export twice with identical result.

[mpack]

Forget the export feature. Just copy the VM folder, then double-click the .vbox file (to register the VM on the new host) after installing VirtualBox on that host.

Note that this will only work if the source VM was created using VirtualBox v4.0.0 or later - it doesn't matter which VBox version last used it. This is because v4.0.0 and later put all the VM files into a single folder, which is thus easily copied. If you are in any doubt that this applies to you then clone the VM using v4.1.0's cloning feature, then copy the clone folder.

[wabe]

Thanks for the answer. I transfered the actual disk image. The VM starts on the new machine but not with the same settings I used on the old machine. If I set up the machine to use two virtual processors I get an error message and the VM doesn't start. I've also lost network connectivity (bridged adapter). The machine reports that it has network connectivity but doesn't receive a a valid ipaddress from the dhcp-server.

[mpack]

My instructions were to copy the VM folder, not just the disk image. That way you are guaranteed to have all the same VM settings. Of course some of those settings may not be portable to a new host, such as shared folder names or host NIC identifiers. You have to use common sense to fix that.

[wabe]

I'll try again but since the folder containing the actual image was empty except for the actual image I just copied it. Do you imply there are hidden files there that I missed by just copying the image file??

[Perryg]

@wabe,

If the folder does not have any other files then it must have been created with an earlier version of VirtualBox than 4.*
If that is the case then you can still export but use the legacy ovf and not ova format.

[Suncat2000]

The statement about VB storing all files under a single folder hierarchy is misleading. I just created a new VM using version 4.1.8. My 'VirtualBox VMs' folder was created and contained the .vbox metadata file, a Snapshots folder, and a Logs folder. The snapshots folder contained the differencing disks, but the root disk was in a separate and unrelated folder hierarchy, just like pre-4.0 versions.

I presume the statement should say that all files for an empty VM created from scratch will store all its files under a single folder hierarchy, but if you create a VM based on an existing disk, instead of copying the disk, VB creates the new set of folders for the new files only and adds a differencing disk that refers to the original disk in its previous location. If you want them all under a single folder, you still have to manually copy them there yourself, and manage the VM to update the disk locations, after the new VM has been created where VB wants it.

[mpack]

Does that point really need to be labored? Yes, if you force VirtualBox to mount a disk image that's located outside the VM folder, then that of course means (duh) that some files needed by the VM are located outside the VM folder. That should go without saying. The statement above is about where VirtualBox puts its files, not about where you can put them.