Dropped the Disk Image?

[jParnell8839]

Ok, so I have a VM that I have saved a lot of snapshots of. Randomly, some time between 19 days ago and today, my VM's SATA controller dropped the VMDK listed. It has nothing. Additionally, I cannot point it back to the VMDK, because it is in a point of a restored snapshot. So, is there any way to restore the VMDK to the VM without corrupting the snapshot?

[mpack]

I suggest you clone the latest snapshot VMDK (in the Snapshots subfolder of the VM) using CloneVDI. You should then build a new VM around the resulting VDI clone, which will be a standalone verson of the cloned disk.

I also suggest that you avoid snapshots in future. Making backups is the best way to ensure that data won't be lost.

[jParnell8839]

I suggest you clone the latest snapshot VMDK (in the Snapshots subfolder of the VM) using CloneVDI. You should then build a new VM around the resulting VDI clone, which will be a standalone verson of the cloned disk.

I also suggest that you avoid snapshots in future. Making backups is the best way to ensure that data won't be lost.

Actually, this one was easier to fix that I had anticipated. I first copied the VM's folder out of C:\Users\[user]\VirtualBox VMs as a backup, opened a command prompt and went to C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox and ran "VBoxManage discardstate VM-Name". I lost the hibernated state of the VM, but that was never important to begin with. Everything I had saved was still saved to a cloud service, so loss of data was not important. I just didn't want the snapshot structure to be damaged, and I had never run through this issue before.

[mpack]

Hmm. I don't see how any of that (except restoring from a backup) can fix a broken snapshot chain, which is what you seemed to be reporting in your original message. An invalidated saved state usually has specific error messages. I also don't see how this could look like the VMDK being disconnected from the VMs hdd controller.

[jParnell8839]

Hmm. I don't see how any of that (except restoring from a backup) can fix a broken snapshot chain, which is what you seemed to be reporting in your original message. An invalidated saved state usually has specific error messages. I also don't see how this could look like the VMDK being disconnected from the VMs hdd controller.

The VMDK itself was still good, apparently. The settings just didn't have it listed under the sata controller. I couldn't point it back to the VMDK because of the snapshot. When I cleared the save state and pointed it back to the VMDK and restored the snapshot, I got the following error message:

Code: Select all

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Base Image.

ahci#0: The target VM is missing a device on port 0. Please make sure the source and target VMs have compatible storage configurations [ver=6 pass=final] (VERR_SSM_LOAD_CONFIG_MISMATCH).

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {db7ab4ca-2a3f-4183-9243-c1208da92392}

and the VMDK was no longer attached to the VM. Clearing the save state keeps all the changes I made to the VM, but removes the "hibernate-like" function that you get when you close the VM with "Shutdown - Restore Previous Capture". The only thing this would affect is if I had documents open that I didn't save, which is never the case. I always save about every 2 minutes and back up those saves to Google Drive, Skydrive, and my own WebDAV account on my server prior to closing it. The only reason I make captures is prior to installing iffy software (in case it breaks something), so I have something to restore to.

Not restoring the previous snapshot allows me to boot just fine.