E_FAIL (0x80004005) error on WIN7 Pro Host

[biggreenthugs]

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I have been looking through forum posts for a while for an answer to this issue and not found one.

I have a Windows 7 64 bit host running Virtualbox version 4.2.14 with a Windows Server 2003 R2 32bit guest. Everything was fine until there was a power failure. Yes it's on a battery backup but I was not home at the time of the power failure and the host was not shut down properly. (I later found out there is a way of shutting down guests if the UPS reports a failure.) The host started up fine but it's one guest did not. when I tried to start it I got this error.

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine john.

No error info.

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: ProgressProxy
Interface: IProgress {c20238e4-3221-4d3f-8891-81ce92d9f913}


I went searching through various forums that had some interesting and creative ideas for fixing the issue. I will list what I have tried so far.
Shutting down Virtualbox and renaming the virtualbox.xml file and then creating a new virtual machine with the original .vhd file. This worked except I didn't take into account the snapshot and all of the information added to this guest since I spun it up (June of 2013) is in the snapshot.

After more reading I decided to try to delete the snapshot and therefor merge the snapshot into the original and I get this error.

Failed to delete the snapshot Snapshot 1 of the virtual machine john.

Parent UUID {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} of the medium 'C:\Users\User\VirtualBox VMs\john\Snapshots/{47c8e26b-233e-4a90-aa0e-47ab4d30600b}.vhd' does not match UUID {276e274d-086b-483a-b2c7-7c5d8fe58099} of its parent medium stored in the media registry ('C:\Users\User/.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml').

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Medium
Interface: IMedium {29989373-b111-4654-8493-2e1176cba890}

So I now have new things to search for. I had read that Cloning the original VM (John, silly name. I know) would fix UUID issues. I tried cloning from the Virtualbox GUI and got a variation of the above error. "parent UUID....." Next I tried to use the command line "Vboxmanage clonehd" and got a command line version of the "parent UUID...." error above. Next I tried the utility of CLONEVDI (version 2.10) I looked promising but It too errored out giving me a "we can't do that yet" error. I don't know enough about that tool to know if I goofed it up or if it doesn't like .VHD files of if it doesn't like to write the cloned files to a different drive than the original.

It would seem that fixing the "{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}" in what ever xml file that it resides in would fix the error. I'm willing to do that if someone can point me in the right direction.
or if there were some way of attaching a snapshot to a different virtual machine (with the original .vhd file) or a way to merge the snapshot with the original .VHD file that I haven't tried.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this.

[mpack]

Parent UUID {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} of the medium 'C:\Users\User\VirtualBox VMs\john\Snapshots/{47c8e26b-233e-4a90-aa0e-47ab4d30600b}.vhd' does not match UUID {276e274d-086b-483a-b2c7-7c5d8fe58099} of its parent medium stored in the media registry ('C:\Users\User/.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml').

That's quite telling. It's telling you that this first so-called snapshot VHD mentioned isn't a snapshot at all, because it has no parent UUID link. Now it could never have worked like that if it really was a snapshot with a broken link, so I assume that at some point the snapshot VHD was cloned, and the flattened clone used to replace the original snapshot. VirtualBox wouldn't mind that the disk image is stand alone, until you tried to do something that only works with snapshots, such as merge a snapshot chain after deleting one of the snapshot markers.

It also incidentally tells me that this is an unconverted v3 VM, so recovering from snapshot errors will be nasty.

You say that you tried CloneVDI and also got an error. Please tell me exactly what you tried, and what the exact error message was?

[biggreenthugs]

A little more Story and then I'll follow up with in an additional post with the clone VDI error message.

6 weeks ago this Server 2003 install was sitting happily on an older but working fine Intel 1U server. Lightning Storm moved through and the one thing that man I am now helping (let's call him Jim) didn't have plugged into a surge/battery backup was an 8 port switch. and through the network cable came the Frying of the Board. From one of the Raid drives I was able to get a .vhd image with disk2vhd and made it work with a repair install of 2003 and was able to boot it in VirtualBOX ( I love Virtualbox BTW ) I took the snapshot before the repair install. This was the only snapshot taken. The server had been running without a single hiccup in Virtualbox as a guest since 6/25. The WIN7 Pro host was on a battery backup but on Saturday Morning his house lost power. I, though I love Virtualbox, am not familiar with all of it's nuances and didn't know there was a way to have the virtual machines shutdown automatically after a certain period of time when the UPS is on internal power. The Host powered down and when started again the next morning, the virtual machine wouldn't start and had the errors described above. Like anytime windows is abruptly and improperly shutdown there is a chance for file corruption and I assume that's what happened with one or more of the files associated with VM. I was hoping there was a way to fix the/those file(s). Otherwise I can get it up and running again from the original image like I did before and go from there. I was hoping to not have Jim lose a months worth of work.

I'll duplicate the error with clonevdi and post them a bit later.

[biggreenthugs]

Additional Note: I found out the error is in the .VHD header of the snapshot. Any way to edit that?