VBoxmanage Internalcommand Question on ConvertHD

[McSkyguy]

Hi folks -- I am trying to convert a .VDI (Centos 7 guest) on a Windows 7 VB 5.0 host to a .VHD. The exact command I'm using is (short of the xxx.xxx subfolder name): vboxmanage.exe internalcommands converthd -srcformat vdi c:\users\xxx.xxx\virtualbox\centOS 7.vdi -dstformat VHD e:\doublewall.vhd. The command errors out with: Syntax error: Invalid parameter 'e:\doublewall.vhd' . What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

[socratis]

What am I doing wrong?

You're using an undocumented, internal command instead of the supported "VBoxManage clonehd". Try that one...

[McSkyguy]

Thanks Socratis, that worked!

[socratis]

Glad it worked!

[McSkyguy]

Using the clonehd command worked to convert the format from vdi to vhd but when I created a guest VM on my Windows 2012 host using the newly converted .vhd the system doesn't run like the original. It looks like mounts aren't working right. To recap my situation:
- Have a Centos 7 guest that is configured as an RSA authentication manager that is working perfectly as a guest on my Windows 7 workstation running VB 5.0.14
- Run the clonehd command and get the vhd
- configure a new guest on my Hyper-v (Windows 2012) server using the cloned .vdi ->.vhd file
- New guest attempts to start but doesn't get mounts configured as the original
Is there some switches I need to incorporate on the CloneHD command that will correct the situation?

Note also that I tried using that vhd on a new guest configured on VB and it doesn't work either.

[mpack]

Can you explain why you wanted to convert from the robust native VDI format to the inferior performing, fragile, and not as well supported VHD format?

Just this week I had to explain to someone that I couldn't fix his catastrophically failed VHD because VHD is a third party format and we have no great expertise with it here.

[McSkyguy]

Sure mpack. For the reasons you stated I use VB on my systems at home and my workstation at work. I use it at work so I can easily build test systems for desktop app testing and cyber security testing. At work we are in a rather strictly controlled government contracting IT environment and for reasons centered around that we operate primarily in a Windows environment. Because I believed that a VB quest could be converted to a .vhd rather easily I built this system (on my workstation) to replace a Linux based RSA appliance that would allow the import of the replaced system's configuration and then be hosted on a MS Hyper-V host. Now, I would really hate to duplicate all the efforts that went into building it to build it again on that Hyper-V host so I'm hoping for an answer here. Thanks for the read!