Virtual Box VM weirdness

[Velvis]

Client has a Windows 11 machine running a Win XP VM.

This morning the VM wont start saying some of the vhds cant be found.

There are vhds and snapshots in the folders where they should be but they are not the ones its looking for.

I went through the Carbonite as well as OneDrive backups but they only have the same files that are currently on the drive.

A search for the files the Virtual Box is looking for dont appear to be any where on the hard drive.

Any ideas what would cause this?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

First thing I'd do is look to see where the VM files were stored. Default location should be in %userprofile%\VirtualBox VMs. I'd confirm in the "settings" section. Also run a search for *.vdi files on the whole drive.

Not sure which antivirus software is being used....always the chance it gobbled up some files it didn't like.

For virtualizing on desktops, I mostly setup Hyper-V now, Microsoft includes that in Windows since some version of Windows 10. Pro and up of course, not the stripped down Home edition. Pretty much the same Hyper-V you have on Windows server.

Check "Previous Versions" in file explorer?

 

[nlinecomputers]

There are vhds and snapshots in the folders where they should be but they are not the ones its looking for.

Can you elaborate on this? Are you saying the files are misnamed?

If you do have a carbonite backup. You should be able to recreate the VM on a new machine.

 

[Velvis]

Can you elaborate on this? Are you saying the files are misnamed?

If you do have a carbonite backup. You should be able to recreate the VM on a new machine.

I believe so. The VM is looking for a specific snapshot but it isnt there. However there is a snapshot file (with a large file size) in the same folder that isnt being used.

I'm certainly not 100% but thats what it appears to look like.

 

[Velvis]

First thing I'd do is look to see where the VM files were stored. Default location should be in %userprofile%\VirtualBox VMs. I'd confirm in the "settings" section. Also run a search for *.vdi files on the whole drive.

Not sure which antivirus software is being used....always the chance it gobbled up some files it didn't like.

For virtualizing on desktops, I mostly setup Hyper-V now, Microsoft includes that in Windows since some version of Windows 10. Pro and up of course, not the stripped down Home edition. Pretty much the same Hyper-V you have on Windows server.

Check "Previous Versions" in file explorer?

So this is weird. I ran a search on *.vdi and I saw a file matching the name the VM is looking for.(just .vdi vs vhd. It had the same box icon as other VM files but it was red. (a google search revealed *.vdi files have the red box icon.)

While the search was running I popped a shell to check out %userprofiles%\VirtualBox VMs and there was nothing there. I believe its set somewhere else but I only saw the location of the Snapshots in VirtualBox settings so I cant confirm the location.

Anyways I went back to the search results and the .vdi file is no longer listed.

Additional searches come up empty now.

I know I saw the red box icon and the filename match (atleast the first 5 or so characters) so I dont know whats going on.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Corrupt Snapshot. Best fix is to creat a new guest

Dealing with corrupted snapshots - virtualbox.org

forums.virtualbox.org

 

[Philippe]

There are vhds and snapshots in the folders where they should be but they are not the ones its looking for.

Vbox is searching not only for correct filenames but their Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) must be correct too.

 

[Velvis]

Corrupt Snapshot. Best fix is to creat a new guest

Dealing with corrupted snapshots - virtualbox.org

forums.virtualbox.org

I am unable to clone the machine because of the missing file.

Can a new guest be created from the existing VM?

 

[nlinecomputers]

You are going to have to create a new guest by hand and manually copy the vhd file over. Any changes reflected in the snapshot are lost. Snapshots are not a backup.

You said you had a carbonite backup. You should be able to reconstruct the quest by taking all the files. Assuming the backup predates the corruption.

 

[Velvis]

Yes, there is a carbonite backup but it also doesnt have the snapshot Virtual Box is looking for.

I've also just learned about OneDrive is it has sort of a restore point feature. I rolled back a week.
This didnt result in the .vhd being found, but did (sorta) find the .vdi that has the same name as the VB is looking for.

However the vdi only displays it in the Quick Access part of file explorer and when I try to do anything with it (open, copy, cut, etc.) is gives an error that it is no longer located in that location.

Also when you use the term "guest" is that the same as a VM

 

[nlinecomputers]

You shouldn’t be storing your VM in OneDrive. Syncing can screw up stuff.

Each VM is called a guest.

 

[Velvis]

You shouldn’t be storing your VM in OneDrive. Syncing can screw up stuff.

Each VM is called a guest.

Yes, I'm starting to realize that... Uggh.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Yes, there is a carbonite backup but it also doesnt have the snapshot Virtual Box is looking for.

If you restore ALL the files then the configuration, the .vbox file, will be part of the lot. You need to rename the whole vbox stack to.bad and restore it all fresh.

 

[Philippe]

Did you check the VirtualBox "Virtual Media manager"?