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Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 20. Jul 2015, 15:14
by i.gerasimov
Before crash OS Windows 7 x64, i can't run "***.vdi" on the VirtualBox
Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 20. Jul 2015, 15:49
by mpack
That message means that the file is not a VDI, despite the extension. I can't say more than that with the information given. This could mean that the file was never a VDI, or that it has been badly corrupted.
What is drive J?
A classic error would be to transport a large VDI on a FAT32 external driver which has a 4GB file size limit. Or, the external drive was unplugged without ejecting it first and thus has errors on it.
Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 20. Jul 2015, 16:00
by i.gerasimov
drive J is working logical disk.
how i can restore this *.vdi?
backups is not exist
Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 20. Jul 2015, 16:12
by mpack
"working logical disk" does not mean anything to me. "J" does not sound like the drive letter of a local drive, so what kind of drive is it? E.g. external USB drive? Network shared folder? I am trying to estimate the most likely kind of damage.
There are no magic solutions: if the VDI is corrupted and you have no backup then there may be no way to recover the data. But, your chances will be much better if you answer my questions accurately.
Tell me:
- What type of disk is drive "J"?
- Did this VDI file ever work on the current host PC?
- If yes to (2), what has changed since it worked?
- What was the maximum size of the drive selected at creation time?
- What is the exact size in bytes of the VDI file now?
It might also be useful if you made a ZIP containing the first 64KB of the vdi file (binary data written to a separate file using a hex editor such as
frHed or similar), and attach the zip here.
Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 20. Jul 2015, 16:43
by i.gerasimov
1. see attachment
2. yes. 16.07.2015
3. virtual machine with *.vdi worked when the computer is chrashed. Power off during install update of system. Then computer is restoring, and three of five *.vdi is not working
4. 150GB
5. 52 591 329 280 bytes
Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 20. Jul 2015, 17:02
by mpack
Ok, so "J" is a partition on the local drive (disk 0) which also hosts your "C" partition. If the VDI file has not been copied from elsewhere then that implies host disk corruption, rather than a truncated file.
The last sentence of my previous post asked for a zip attachment containing some data. Please review the request if you want me to continue with this problem.
Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 20. Jul 2015, 17:34
by i.gerasimov
oo, sorry, i noticed...
so?
Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 20. Jul 2015, 19:06
by mpack
Are you sure this is the first 64KB of the VDI file?
If so, then I'm sorry to tell you that the contents are complete garbage. There is nothing of the VDI file left. The last time I saw something like this, it was the result of someone using an "undelete" tool which had reconstituted the filename but not the correct sector chain, hence the file contents were random nonsense. That's what this looks like, but you have not mentioned deleting anything or using an undelete tool.
A PC crash will not cause this. A lot of steps are needed to write data to a disk sector, it does not happen by itself or even during an ordinary software crash, much less to 256 consecutive sectors (maybe more - I only had the first 64K). Likewise a runaway user-level program can't overwrite parts of the disk owned by other files - the OS prevents it. If you didn't undelete this file then I'm at a loss to explain the total destruction of the original VDI structures.
You said that the corruption was caused by "power off during system update". If "system update" refers to Windows Update or even an operating system upgrade then the J partition should not have been affected, since nothing was writing to it. I guess if you had a crash while the disk was being repartitioned then that could produce damage like this.
Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 21. Jul 2015, 09:45
by i.gerasimov
Strangely, i did not delete and not restore this vdi file. apparently, This file will not restore

Re: Could not get the storage format of the medium
Posted: 21. Jul 2015, 09:50
by i.gerasimov
that's a normal vdi file on the same disk