Restore virtual HD after uninstall and reinstall

[Daterp]

Had my 2009 iMac HD wiped clean and reloaded with Mavericks in an effort to correct some other problems unrelated to VB.
Did a complete restore from Time Machine, which seemed to be successful.
VB loaded, but I had an issue with getting my Windows 7 to start. Turned out it may have just been a permissions problem, but in the mean time I uninstalled VB and all files and reloaded v 4.3.10 r93012 and Windows 7.
VB and Windows seem to be running now, but all my data is gone. What I'd like to know is if there is any way to restore from Time Machine my old virtual HD that had all my data on it.
I found in Users/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks a Windows 7.vdi, but don't know if that's what I'm looking for. The create and last opened date are both 2/4/11.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

[loukingjr]

if your Windows 7 guest was running fine before you reinstalled Mavericks and restored then you can do this.
open Time Machine.
you will see a stack of finder windows
with the arrow keys to the right. navigate to the day before you reinstalled everything. the dates are on the bottom, so if you reinstalled Mavericks on the 22nd, go back to the 21st.
Find the VMs folder. Click on it, inside will be your Windows 7 folder. click on that, then hit restore at the bottom of the screen. at some point it will ask you if you want to make a copy or replace. choose replace. That's about it.

[Daterp]

I entered Time Machine and found a VirtualBox VMs folder up to last Monday when I uninstalled and reloaded VB. Before that date, there isn't a folder by that name. Is it possible it's under another folder? I searched for a Windows 7 folder and the only one to come up in back-ups older than 4/21 was in the Library folder under my User name.

Macintosh HD/User/daterpstra/Library/VirtualBox/Machines/Windows 7
Within this Windows 7 folder were two other folders /Logs and /Snapshots

There is also a folder that is in all the back-ups going back quite a ways: Macintosh HD/User/daterpstra/Library/VirtualBox/Hard Discs which contained a Windows 7.vdi file with a 2/4/11 date.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

[loukingjr]

the one from 2011 is much too old. I don't understand something. your time machine backups only go back 2 days? are you backing up to your internal drive?
it does look like you have an external drive for backups.

[Daterp]

My Time Machine back-ups go back for at least several months. What I was trying to say is that when I go back past last Monday, the /VirtualBox VMs folder is no longer there in the User/daterpstra/ folder. I have no idea why it wouldn't be there. I wasn't running VB for at least a week before I had my Macintosh HD rebuilt so the files weren't changing. That's why I wondered if the files might be elsewhere on the drive, but nothing came up using the search in TM.

[loukingjr]

well you could try this, enter Time Machine, do a search for .vdi. see if it finds anything that could be your Windows 7.vdi in April

[Daterp]

Searched Time Machine for .vdi files, but didn't come up with any other than the ones from 2011 or after 4/22/14. There was one listed for 4/21/14, but didn't appear to be a viable file since the "icon" shown for it was a blank page rather than the red cube. There was no path shown for it at the bottom of the window as there is for those with a red cube icon.
It may be that I'm just out-of-luck on this one and will have to recreate what files I can. It would be nice to know what I was doing wrong (or did wrong) that caused these files to not be present on the back-up.
Thanks for your help.

[loukingjr]

Searched Time Machine for .vdi files, but didn't come up with any other than the ones from 2011 or after 4/22/14. There was one listed for 4/21/14, but didn't appear to be a viable file since the "icon" shown for it was a blank page rather than the red cube. There was no path shown for it at the bottom of the window as there is for those with a red cube icon.
It may be that I'm just out-of-luck on this one and will have to recreate what files I can. It would be nice to know what I was doing wrong (or did wrong) that caused these files to not be present on the back-up.
Thanks for your help.

Sorry to hear that, but you're welcome. I don't know why you ended up reinstalling OSX but perhaps the problems are related.