VB suddenly will not start: Error Message

[meld51]

Hello,

After running this XP Guest for years it suddenly falls over at start up and presents the following error message:

Please can someone help? Thanks in advance,
Mel

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Virtual XP.
Failed to open image 'C:\Users\Mel\Documents\Virtual Box Backups\Virtual Box 12 2014\Clone of VirtualXP.vdi' for writing due to wrong permissions (VERR_VD_IMAGE_READ_ONLY).
Failed to attach driver below us! Image is read-only. (VERR_VD_IMAGE_READ_ONLY).
PIIX3 cannot attach drive to the Primary Master (VERR_VD_IMAGE_READ_ONLY).
Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {8ab7c520-2442-4b66-8d74-4ff1e195d2b6}

[socratis]

Failed to open image 'C:\Users\Mel\Documents\Virtual Box Backups\Virtual Box 12 2014\Clone of VirtualXP.vdi' for writing due to wrong permissions (VERR_VD_IMAGE_READ_ONLY).

The message seems pretty self explanatory; check the permissions on your VM folder.

[meld51]

Apologies.

I should have taken the time to explain more...

I have already looked at the *.vdi file and the folder it is in.

Neither of them are "read only"

[socratis]

They may not be read-only, but you may not have write access. In fact, that's the exact error message: no write-access. So I would start checking a) permissions again, b) read-only flags.

From the limited information you gave us, based on the path of the error message, you're running a "Backup" version of a "Clone" (or a Clone of a Backup). Are you absolutely sure that this is the guest that was running for years? For a more of in depth discussion, you'll need to read: Minimum information needed for assistance.