Problems after cancelling appliance export

[Bilby]

Hi,

after I had to cancel the export of one appliance - i had to cancel the task due to limited space on my disk - i can't start my Vm anymore as i got the typical "FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium! System halted" error. But I haven't changed anything in the settings.

I am using vb version 4.1 on a Windows 7 system.

Any idea, what i can do?

Thanks.

Bilby

[mpack]

This doesn't make sense. I can't think of any reason why exporting an appliance would involve any changes at all to the original VM. There must have been some other change. Post the log file from the VM. The log file is called "VBox.log" and can be found in the "Logs" subfolder of the VM folder. Make sure the VM is shut down before you grab the log - and post it as a .zip attachment please.

[Bilby]

This doesn't make sense. I can't think of any reason why exporting an appliance would involve any changes at all to the original VM. There must have been some other change. Post the log file from the VM. The log file is called "VBox.log" and can be found in the "Logs" subfolder of the VM folder. Make sure the VM is shut down before you grab the log - and post it as a .zip attachment please.

Hi,

thanks for the response. If I start VB there is a message that there exist VMs, which are not accessable. They can 't be used since they are not accessable. And they give me the option to either ignore the warnings or to check the settings.

Here is the log file in form of an attachement.

Best

Bilby

[mpack]

Well, I see no evidence that a virtual disk of any sort is attached to this VM (no VDI, VHD, VMDK or ISO file is attached). That would explain why it fails to find a boot medium.

I would guess that you've been booting from a virtual CD (an ISO), never actually installing an OS. But, at some point you unmounted the ISO - perhaps the "Export appliance" feature warned you to do so, I guessing on that because it isn't a feature I have a use for.

[Bilby]

Well, I see no evidence that a virtual disk of any sort is attached to this VM (no VDI, VHD, VMDK or ISO file is attached). That would explain why it fails to find a boot medium.

I would guess that you've been booting from a virtual CD (an ISO), never actually installing an OS. But, at some point you unmounted the ISO - perhaps the "Export appliance" feature warned you to do so, I guessing on that because it isn't a feature I have a use for.

Hi,

what does that mean exactly concerning my files, I worked on on the VM? I need them for my work. The .vdi file still uses 17,59 GB from 39,5 GB. Strange, that i only cancelled the appliance export.

Best Bilby

[Bilby]

Hi,

it seems the cancellation of this export has deleted all of my virtual disk space. In the folder of my vm i found an older "virtual disk image"-file from 26.11.

By the way, the same problem occured at my second VM. There i have a Virtual Machine Disk Format File from this morning and with a size of 26 GB. I am really a bit speechless...

Best

Bilby

[mpack]

What can I tell you? If you stored your files on a disk then they will still exist on that disk. If not then they won't.

I can think of two possibilities, one good, one bad.

• The good possibility: you installed the OS properly, you ran some application and saved the data you were working on to a file on the (virtual) disk. Somehow you disconnected the disk from the VM, but that's ok, you can just use the VM "Storage" section to browse for that VDI file, which will reconnect it to the VM. Then the VM will boot and everyone lives happily ever after.
• The bad possibility: you booted the guest OS from a "live CD". You didn't install, you just ran the guest OS in evaluation mode. You ran an application and saved your data to a RAMdisk. When you shut down the VM the RAMdisk was of course lost.

There's basically no way for me to know what you did. You just have to ask yourself which of the above seems most likely.

[Bilby]

Ok,

thanks, I solved the problem. I still don't know, why VB deleted the connection to the virtual disk. I just imported the files in new VMs.

Best

Bilby

[mpack]

it seems the cancellation of this export has deleted all of my virtual disk space.

To reiterate: there is no way that exporting an appliance, by itself, could cause data loss in the original VM. You have to have done something else, most likely one of the things outlined above.

[mpack]

I still don't know, why VB deleted the connection to the virtual disk. I just imported the files in new VMs.

The good possibility panned out? Good news!

If I was you I would write your work product files to shared folders, until you get more of a handle on installing guest OSs etc.