Rename/Move VirtualBox Virtual Disk

ubuntu rename virtualbox move hard-drive
Samuel picture Samuel · Jul 20, 2012 · Viewed 14.4k times · Source

I renamed a directory that my virtual disk was in and now I can't start the Ubuntu VM, and can't figure out how to specify the virtual disk's new location with VirtualBox. Please help.

Answer

zupa picture zupa · Nov 16, 2013

To move a .vbox file, edit

C:\Users\USER\.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml

The file is quite self-explanatory, I updated the

/VirtualBox/Global/MachineRegistry/MachineEntry[N]/@src

attribute. Works like a charm. It seems not to care whether you use slashes/backslashes. You may want to make a backup copy first. Restart VirtualBox as explained below.

--

To move a disk image, edit the .vbox file, which is an XML file as well. I updated the

/VirtualBox/Machine/MediaRegistry/HardDisks/HardDisk/@location

attribute. Example value:

location="C:/VM/UbuntuServer12/UbuntuServer12.vdi"

--

Restarting VirtualBox

When restarting VirtualBox, I waited for the VBoxSVC.exe daemon to exit as well. Not sure if it makes a difference, takes a few seconds only, was mentioned somewhere.

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