SnapShot Staging During Cloning....

[Macster]

Hi,

Before I get started, I would like to fill you in on the topology of my HDs. My primary HD has two partitions on it.

First partition (C Drive) has the main OS (Windows 7 Ultimate – this being the host). There is only enough space on this partition just for the host OS and its updates, nothing else. There is a reason for this, due to the fact that I seem to be targetted for a lot virus infiltrations or other OS adnormalities, due to software development and such. Should anything happen to the primary OS, it is reloaded from an image or from disk whichever is needed to resolve the given issue at the time. This has served me for a lot of years doing it this way.

The other partition (D Drive) is used strictly for storage of programs and data.

My Secondary HD (F Drive) is used for the VirtualBox and all its pertinent data. The VDI file on this drive houses an install of Windows XP with all its updates.

Here is my dilemma, when I save Snapshots it generally saves them on F:\Snapshots where I have under *Windows XP* – Settings\General\”Advanced” Tab\”Snapshot Folder:” Text Box made the appropriate setting. (*Windows XP* is the name of the Virtual Machine in question without the ‘*’.) When I try to make a clone of one of the Snapshots, for some reason the program is using Drive C: to make this clone thereby taking up all available space that would otherwise be used by the HOST virtual memory space and the program crashs because there is not enough space to make the clone. So is there anyway of making Drive F the staging ground for making the clone without having to use Drive C?

Thanks for any time you may have for this.

Craig

[mpack]

It's not clear what kind of cloning you are referring to.

If you are cloning a VM using the GUI then see File|Preferences|General, Default Machine Folder. This sets the default parent folder for new VMs, including new cloned VMs (i.e. those created using the Clone feature of the v4.1.x or later UI).

If you copy a virtual disk using the "Copy" button in File|Virtual Media Manager then the default path for the clone is the same as the original disk.

I don't recognize your description of where snapshots are stored. Normally they are stored in a "Snapshots" subfolder of the VM folder. Have you been manually editing paths in the .vbox file? If so I would stop doing that. Move the VM properly to a new drive - don't hack the xml.

[Macster]

It's not clear what kind of cloning you are referring to.

I am sorry; when describing complex ideas, words fail me.

If you are cloning a VM using the GUI then see File|Preferences|General, Default Machine Folder. This sets the default parent folder for new VMs, including new cloned VMs (i.e. those created using the Clone feature of the v4.1.x or later UI).

I didn’t know the program came with global preference settings. BTW – this is exactly where I needed to go. Thanks so much for the info. I was using the settings pertaining to the Quest OS, not the Global Preference settings.

If you copy a virtual disk using the "Copy" button in File|Virtual Media Manager then the default path for the clone is the same as the original disk.

Copy isn’t what I had in mind, but it is close to what I was looking for. I needed to make another live image of the quest VM. So yes in essence a copy is what I am looking for but it was termed as a clone. When I right-click on a snapshot in the Tree View menu it has clone as one the options. This is what I was referring to.

I don't recognize your description of where snapshots are stored. Normally they are stored in a "Snapshots" subfolder of the VM folder. Have you been manually editing paths in the .vbox file? If so I would stop doing that. Move the VM properly to a new drive - don't hack the xml.

Because the program defaults to storing all snapshots to “C:\users\<user name>\VirtualBox VMs\Snapshots” (when first installed), I didn’t know how to change this location in the program. As far as “hacking”, you give me way too much credit. I didn’t know about the .vbox file, nor how to read or play with xml. I would like to at some point (work with XML), but not to the point of hacking, but as a developer.

Thanks for your time. You did indeed answer my question. Again thanks.

Craig

[mpack]

I needed to make another live image of the quest VM. So yes in essence a copy is what I am looking for but it was termed as a clone.

In that case all you need to do, after making that change to the "default path for new VMs" discussed above, is right click on the existing VM and select "Clone".

Clone is a correct term. "Copy" is the name of a button in the Virtual Media Manager (at least in the English language GUI), which is why I used that word in the context of that button.