How to merge differencing image?

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Carmageddon
Posts: 9
Joined: 21. Feb 2014, 01:59

How to merge differencing image?

Post by Carmageddon »

Hi guys,

I have a W7 x64 guest on my XP 32 host. Apparently at some point I created a snapshot of the guest, then deleted it and now VB saves everything into a differencing file on my C: drive (instead of where my VM drives are stored). And now I'm running out of space on my C: because the differencing .vdi is 20 gigs.

How do I force VB to merge the differencing file into the original W7's drive?

Notes:
- there are NO snapshots for W7
- I can't clone the W7 machine (as was suggested somewhere) because I don't have more 20 gigs on my C drive where the clone would be created

Suggestions?

Thank you.
Carmageddon
Posts: 9
Joined: 21. Feb 2014, 01:59

Re: How to merge differencing image?

Post by Carmageddon »

OK I found another topic that helped me resolve it.

You don't need to clone the whole VM, just the drive.

vboxmanage clonehd "C:\...differencing.vdi" "X:\...clone.vdi"

Now I can delete both the differencing image and the original image. Clone contains both :)
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39134
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: How to merge differencing image?

Post by mpack »

Cloning the VM would have worked too - just set the default machine folder to some other drive, and that's where the clone VM would be created.

If you cloned the drive then be sure not to add this back to the original VM.

p.s. Next time you pose a question it might be a good idea not to disallow in advance the only possible correct answer!
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