virtualbox.org

What about restoring to a previous snapshot and cloning from there? Will that work? Will we be able to recover to the lastest snapshot?

Restoring to a previous snapshot will have no benefit that I can think of.

I admit being confused about your concern re overwriting a folder. The VM to be cloned is in your junk folder. The cloned VM folder will have whatever name you choose to give the clone - presumably you will pick a name that doesn't conflict. Why would any other VM be affected?

It was my impression from the user manual that all VM folders had to be located in the Program Files\VirtualBox folder. Are you saying that is not correct but that it doesn't matter where the VM folder is physically located, it gets added as a VM to Virtual Box? Kool. That would relieve that worry. I am still concerned that our backed up copy of the VM folder would not start. Any ideas or is it lost for good?

My reason for restoring to a previous snapshot is to get a clone of the VM as it looked before all of the 35 gigs of database files were added, and before SS 2008 was installed. We took a snapshot of it at that point.

You see the reason for a new VM is that there are issues with side by side installation of SS 2008 and SS 2008 R2. So in order to get an SS 2008 R2 installation without screwing with the SS 2008, installation I want to put it on a separate VM.

Several points there.

One, VirtualBox since v4.0.0 does not create VMs in the .VirtualBox folder. If you have VMs there then that's bad news, because older VMs can't be backed up or restored in the way we have been discussing... and it would be useful to have known that!

Two, when VirtualBox creates a VM, it creates it in the default machine folder, which defaults to <userdoc>\"VirtualBox VMs", but you can change that in File|Preferences to anything you prefer. The default folder is not relevant to VMs which already exist, including VMs added using Machine|Add. It is however relevant to any clone you create.

As to the procedure for doing a restore: it's as I described earlier, provided it's a V4 VM (i.e. described by a <vmname>.vbox file rather than a <vmname>.xml). There's a limit to how much diagnosing of petty errors I can do from over here, you have to apply your own logic if you want to get the job done.

Arguments like "vmdk is the standard. This is why we import as vmdk" make me laugh. vbox could still create VDIs on the fly when importing.

You will need to earn many more karma points before anyone cares what you laugh at.

I received these two replies to this thread which I had totally forgotten about. So I would like to say that since then that we've successfully restored the VM to an earlier version of the VM and installed SS 2008R2. During the sequester (which closed the base every friday) I was able to copy the VM from this machine to my company's machine running a later version of VBox with no issue. In August the Navy provided us with a Tech Refresh, (which provided us with new laptops that were only one OS version and two Browser versions out of date instead of the previous three os versions and three browser versions out of date,) so we had to move the VM again. Again with no issue.

Generally my experience on Oracle forums has not been very positive and usually leaves me with my teeth grinding and muttering imprecations under my breath. But this forum's participants and particularly mpack have been very patient and understanding with someone undergoing their first experience with an OS independent virtualization product.

Thank you Mpack.

Thanks for the feedback, and the kind words... though nobody ever accused me of having patience before...