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Differencing Disk: Lost Base Disk. Can I recreate to use DD?
Posted: 22. Sep 2012, 02:56
by PaddyInP
I have a differencing disk for which I accidentally deleted the base disk. I have snapshots for the latter, but no original .vdi. Is it possible to recreate the VDI (it was a Windows XP SP3 installation with Windows Updates at the time, a few years ago), and then add this VDI as the new base disk, or is the differencing disk now worthless? Is there any way to at least access the data on the differencing disk?
Re: Differencing Disk: Lost Base Disk. Can I recreate to use
Posted: 22. Sep 2012, 12:29
by mpack
Sorry, the differencing disks are now worthless. You essentially have a patchlist with nothing to patch. If you have even once backed up that VM since the first snapshot was taken then the base VDI is easily restored. If you've never made a backup... well I don't need to say any more.
I don't believe it is possible to retrace your original steps to recreate the base VDI - you would need to end up with the data in exactly the same disk sectors as before, and without an pinpoint accurate record of what you did last time, in what order, with what versions of what... nah, it's a non starter.