virtualbox.org

I have 5 Vms, windows 95, 98, 2000, xp, and an android vm I made the other week. The 4 windows VMs all function perfectly, but for some reason, the VDI for the android vm harddrive keeps disappearing out of the virtual media manager window. In the last version of virtualbox, I was able to just drag the vdi back into the window, and then I'd refresh the vm and it'd be good to boot. In the latest version, the drag functionality is gone, and I must go to the Copy option in the virtual media manager window to alert vitualbox to this vdi. Once I browse the vdi, I can cancel out of the copy prompts and the vdi will be back in my virtual media manager window
My question is, why does the vdi keep disappearing? All 5 vm's vdi's are on the same drive, however only my android vdi keeps going inaccessibly and being lost from the virtual manager window.

p1r473 wrote:I was able to just drag the vdi back into the window ... why does the vdi keep disappearing?

It's because dragging a VDI into the Window is not a documented way to register the VDI. It works for legacy reasons (VBox 3 used to have a global media registry) but now its just a stub.

To register a VDI properly, go to the VM settings, Storage section, click a disk controller you want to attach a disk to (given your list of guest OS's, this will be the IDE controller), and click the "Add attachment" icon, add hard disk, use existing VDI file, and select the VDI file from the browser.

It's good practice to locate the VDI file inside the VM folder and NOT share it with any other VMs.

When the vm is inaccessible, I cant even go to settings (it is greyed out).
so do I need to make it re-accesible via legacy methods in order to just be able to do this fix and go to its settings?

If it's inaccessible because of missing media, then go to File|Virtual Media Manager to release and remove the media. Then follow the above.

The vdi doesn't show up in the virtual media manager window, so I can't release it. Theres nothing to release. That's why I was legacy importing the VDI in
I dont actually know why it keeps going inaccessible, but I mean the media is there. Maybe when I legacy it in, it doesn't register properly, but when I first made the VM it was fine. SOmewhere along the line, maybe the registry of the VDI went funny? But it stays okay for a while but eventually becomes inaccessible again
The only thing I can think of doing is legacy'ing it in, so that I can release it, then add it properly. But I'd like to know the proper way of fixing it before I resort to that kind of hack-around

Please post the contents of your VirtualBox.xml file, plus the ".vbox" file for the VM. Put them both in one zip and attach here, I'll take a look.

How long have you been using VirtualBox, i.e. did you ever use VBox 3.x?

I've been using virtualbox for a few years maybe. So there's a chance I've used vbox 3.x. I've had the 4 windows Vms running for ages, the android one is recent.
Thanks very much

Ok, the good news is that your VirtualBox.xml file is up to date, you are not mixing v3 and v4 VMs.

I've modified the .vbox file to remove the reference to unregistered media. Use this to replace your existing .vbox, then move the VDI into the VM folder beside the .vbox, then register the VDI as I described above.

The VDI has always been next to the vbox
Ive replaced the old vbox file, but Im still getting the same inaccessible error every time I try to run virtualbox (I have closed virtualbox before trying to replace the file)

I think this is a slightly different error now. Before, I couldn't find the VDI. Now, this is the error. And legacying it in doesn't fix it this time
This is the error now This is the error before I also tried the hack-around, I legacied in the VDI, and changed the hard drive from a SATA to an IDE, restarted, but it's inaccessible again
The way it was before was
IDE
-Empty
Sata
-VDI

Now its
IDE
-Empty
-VDI

But... still inaccessible after a reboot
Something is terribly wrong

Please stop doing the "legacy" thing. All that does is cause confusion.

I've updated the vbox file again. Please see the attachment.

Thanks, it seems to be working now
So, how did this get messed up, so I know what not to do next time?

Like I already said, your legacy way of registering a VDI doesn't really work. It works for one session but doesn't get saved to disk.

No, I mean when I originally made the VM with a VDI, how did the VDI start disappearing in the first place?
Once I made my VM with the VDI, shouldnt it have all been dandy, and the VDI never should have gone missing/inaccessible in the first place?

I can't really answer that. If this "legacy thing" is something you do a lot then I can guess that at some point you dragged a "foreign" hd into this VM, and while the new hdd path didn't get saved, the old one might have been removed. Or perhaps you removed it using media manager. There was no corruption involved so whatever it was would have required manual intervention.

I only started legacying in the vdi once it started disappearing, so I guess I must have deleted it at some point then