Recover my virtual machines

ailmarpete · Post by **ailmarpete** » 3. Aug 2008, 15:37

Hi, I have had to to do a reinstall of my Operating system. I always use rsync to do my backups to a USB hard disk and so have got copies of my virtualbox's the machine folders and vdi folders.
Now, how can load up my Virtualbox's. I cannot see anyway to simply open up my original machines. Yes I can create a new virtual machine and use the old vdi, but this is not good enough, I need to use my existing snapshots etc.
I have set the preferences to point to the directories for the machines and vdi but how can I use my original machines?
Thanks for any tips.
Regards Peter.

Post by **TerryE** » 3. Aug 2008, 23:12

The snapshots are in your Machines folder, which by default is in the hidden directory .VirtualBox in your home folder. My tutorial All about VDIs explains the relationships

ailmarpete · Post by **ailmarpete** » 4. Aug 2008, 01:37

Hi thanks very much for that link, the search engine on this site seems rather vague and returns lots of results, or perhaps my search's have been too vague? More likely the latter!
I had my vm's set up in a folder /vms (I too dont like having this sort of thing in my home folder) this includes the .xml files, snapshots etc.
This folder was rynced to a usb hard disk for backups.
Now I have re-installed the operating system, reconstructed my directories (now using LVM) and have the vm's set up in /local
I have copied the files from the backup across to the new folder and have pointed virtualbox to the new location.
There does not seem to be any way I can open an "existing" virtual machine, as opposed to creating a new virtual machine.
Regards Peter.

Post by **TerryE** » 4. Aug 2008, 01:41

Create a new <dummy> one and use the registry entry in VirtualBox.xml as a template to reconstruct a copy of your old one.