virtualbox.org

Hi,

My old Windows 7, 64-bit host machine has died with permanent BSODs upon every start-up trial. The only solution turned out to be a clean installation of the OS (same OS on the same hardware).
I have a full backup of all my VirtualBox data: the VMs themselves, the VirtualBox program folder, and the .VirtualBox settings folder (even the VirtualBox setup files for installing program versions). I have read a lot of information on how to transfer VMs to a different host machine, but I can't make use of anything that requires access to the 'old' host machine (cloning, exporting settings etc.) - which seem to be the officia solutions; as said, that host was completely dead (and by now, is overwritten). I have never made any OVF files.

So what's the proper way of getting my VMs back? Ideally including all the previous VirtualBox program settings and avoiding a hardware change detection in Windows VMs don't need a new activation.

BTW: Is a situation like mine considered in VirtualBox working? Sometimes access to backup-files and a clean host OS installation is the only thing left to us ...

thanks!

If you have the VM folders themselves, and they were running on the same version (4.x.x per ex) than your current host, simply put them in the VMs default folder and register them to Virtualbox.
You should be able to use them almost out of the box, given some network reconfiguration if you used Bridged.