Comments on: How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

By: Derek@TheDailyLinux

Derek@TheDailyLinux — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:34:44 +0000

The file that contains the actual virtual machine has a .vdi extension. I don’t see that in your list, so I would search for that and copy it before removing anything.

Some folks have had success in a simple copy/paste of this file, but my experience was different (couldn’t startup the VM). When I read that there were proper steps to backing up a VM, I made this blog post about it so I wouldn’t forget.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:31:29 +0000

So even if I have all these files below, plus my vdi file (I unfortunately just cut and pasted all these…!), is there NO way to restore these files in a new VM??? There’s no recovery program or anything I can do???

Thank you!
Kelly

These are the files that I copied and pasted before reinstalling the VM, thinking I was covered since I had them all copied:

VirtualBox original
compreg.dat
HardDisks
Machines
Vista on my Mac
Logs
VBox.log
VBox.log.1
VBox.log.2
VBox.log.3
Snapshots
Vista on my Mac.xml
Vista on my Mac.xml-prev

By: wieb

wieb — Tue, 17 May 2011 07:29:24 +0000

In windows you can just copy the vdi, and create a new machine and select the vdi during the process of the wizard.

By: Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog » Ubuntu Fresh Install

Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog » Ubuntu Fresh Install — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 16:19:24 +0000

[...] How to Backup a Virtualbox Hard Drive (Note: You only need to back up the hard drive, not anything else) [...]

By: Shiki

Shiki — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 08:45:38 +0000

This worked nicely. Thanks for the quick and easy post!

By: Virtualization with VirtualBox (running Windows inside Linux)

Virtualization with VirtualBox (running Windows inside Linux) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:40:28 +0000

[...] two virtual machines that are identical), you will need to clone it to get a new id according to this post: VBoxManage clonehd ~/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/WinXP.vdi [...]

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:16:33 +0000

Isn’t this what export appliance is for?

By: Hard drive failure is imminent! How do I back everything up, including what repos/packages, etc?

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:36:20 +0000

[...] the right one?) How do I backup/restore my VDIs – Hands-On (View topic) • virtualbox.org How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI) | The Linux Daily How to copy and transfer or backup a Virtualbox Virtual Machine .vdi – my-guides.net 3. Backup the [...]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:09:22 +0000

Can someone show me in the manual where the VM has to be released before clonehd? I don’t see it in there and have never had a problem cloning attached VMs…although on the surface it seems to make sense.

By: John

John — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:04:39 +0000

Hi,

Using a UUID in Virtual Box is a complete stuff up and cloning or changing UUID on windows disks doesn’t work properly. The UUID is a Linux requirement because it doesnt use disk identifiers A B C like windows and uses UUID instead

To start when a vdi with windows is cloned it requires initiallising again – waste of time for virtual machines you soon run out of activation attempts and Microsoft wont be very helpfull.

If you simply copy a vdi disk it will work fine you just cant load both disks to the virtual file manager at same time but at least the copied disks work.