philip
Guru
Joined: 10 Jun 2003
Posts: 535
Location: Sweden
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 Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 3:06 pm Post subject: [SOLVED] Change location of virtual disk in Virtual Box |
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I have been using VirtualBox for W7 on my Gentoo machine, without any problems for quite some time.
I have given my virtual disk /mnt/w7/Windows_7.vdi a separate partition /dev/hda1 of size 26 GB. Now the size of the virtual disk has grown and I need more disk space. I have installed a new SATA SSD of size 120 GB an mounted it under /mnt/vb_w7/
My intention has been to move the virtual disk to the new SSD. I did the follwing steps to move the virtual disk:
1. cloned the virtual disk to the new location
| Code: | # /opt/bin/VBoxManage clonehd /mnt/w7/Windows_7.vdi /mnt/vb_w7/Windows_7.vdi
0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%
Clone hard disk created in format 'VDI'. UUID: 0c0f2877-96e9-4455-8629-58957d70ee23 |
2. Released the old virtual disk, through the VB GUI
| Code: | Menu -> Virtual Media Manager -> Right Click -> Release
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3. Choose the new location of the (cloned) virtual disk, through the VB GUI
| Code: | | Settings -> Storage -> Click on SATA Controller -> Right Click and Add Hard Disk -> Choose Existing disk -> brows to the new virtual disk location/mnt/vb_w7/Windows_7.vdi) -> Open |
Here I get an error message from VirtualBox:
| Quote: | "Failed to open the hard disk /mnt/vb_w7/Windows_7.vdi
The medium '/mnt/vb_w7/Windows_7.vdi' can't be used as requested device type.
Details:
Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: Medium
Interface: IMedium
{9edda847-1279-4b0a-9af7-9d66251ccc18}
Callee:
IVirtualBox {d2de270c-1d4b-4c9e-843f-bbb9b47269ff} |
I have done the steps according to the VB Manual. I have unfortunately no clue how to solve this.
When I examine the original virtual disk (/mnt/w7/Windows_7.vdi) and the cloned one (/mnt/vb_w7/Windows_7.vdi) the cloned one seems OK with the VBoxManage tool:
| Code: | phils_pc philip # /opt/bin/VBoxManage showhdinfo /mnt/w7/Windows_7.vdi
UUID: 5fce96ff-44d9-485d-93b1-c6d873a6ef90
Accessible: yes
Logical size: 20480 MBytes
Current size on disk: 20480 MBytes
Type: normal (base)
Storage format: VDI
Format variant: fixed default
Location: /mnt/w7/Windows_7.vdi |
and
| Code: | phils_pc philip # /opt/bin/VBoxManage showhdinfo /mnt/vb_w7/Windows_7.vdi
UUID: 0c0f2877-96e9-4455-8629-58957d70ee23
Accessible: yes
Logical size: 20480 MBytes
Current size on disk: 19668 MBytes
Type: normal (base)
Storage format: VDI
Format variant: dynamic default
Location: /mnt/vb_w7/Windows_7.vdi |
S O L V E D:
The problem was that the permissions for the virtual disk file was changed when cloning the disk.
Here are the complete sequence, in 6 steps, for a successful change of location for the virtual machine files and the virtual disk:
Original location /mnt/w7 (on /dev/hda1) and destination /mnt/vb_w7/ (on /dev/sda1)
Step 1:
Use the VBoxManage tool to clone the virtual disk in order to provide it a new UUID. Give the cloned disk a new name in the same step
| Code: | | /opt/bin/VBoxManage clonehd /mnt/w7/Windows_7.vdi /mnt/vb_w7/Win_7.vdi |
Just copy the file to the new location does not work, because VirtualBox needs a unique UUID for the virtual disk file.
New UUID is: 14a33a14-cac3-4e5b-ae13-72f33be7181b
Step 2:
Modify the permission right to the file (virtual disk)
| Code: | | # chmod 777 /mnt/vb_w7/Win_7.vdi |
in order for VirtualBox to recognize the file as a disk
Step 3:
Expand the capacity of the virtual disk to 100 GB (102400 MB)
| Code: | | # cp /mnt/w7/Windows\ 7/ /mnt/vb_w7/ |
Step 4:
Re-configure the virtual machine (named Window 7) to point to the new directory and to attach the cloned disk
In the VirtualBox GUI:
| Code: | | Menu -> Virtual Media Manager -> Right Click -> Release |
and
| Code: |
Settings -> Storage -> Click on SATA Controller -> Right Click and Add Hard Disk -> Choose Existing disk -> brows to the new virtual disk location/mnt/vb_w7/Win_7.vdi) -> Open |
Step 5:
Re-configure the virtual machin (named “Windows 7” in my case) to point to the new directory for the snapshots
| Code: | | General → Advanced → Snapshot folder → “/mnt/vb_w7/Windows 7” |
A final check of the virtual disk size:
| Code: | # /opt/bin/VBoxManage showhdinfo /mnt/vb_w7/Win_7.vdi
UUID: 14a33a14-cac3-4e5b-ae13-72f33be7181b
Accessible: yes
Logical size: 102400 MBytes
Current size on disk: 19669 MBytes
Type: normal (base)
Storage format: VDI
Format variant: dynamic default
Location: /mnt/vb_w7/Win_7.vdi |
Step 6:
Extend the hard disk space in W7
Start the virtual machine to boot into Windows 7 on the newly attached VDI.
| Code: |
Go to Start–>Control Panel–>Administrative Tools–>Computer Management In Computer Management–>Disk Management,
choose your system drive(Boot), right click on it and choose "Extend Volume" |
_________________
/Phil |
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