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Virtualbox Virtual Disks
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General rules and why you may get errors when trying to perform simple disk tasks.

1. a virtual disks is instantly registered to the system whenever a disk command is used on it

2. if a disk is not already registered then it will be issued a UUID and added with its file location

3. if you move, rename, or delete a disk by hand you should update the registry by hand

4. never touch a virtual disk attached to a running virtual machine


Here are some examples of how things might happen.

1. A new virtual disk is copied onto the virtualbox host and you want to simply check it

   root@expo:/tmp # vboxmanage showmediuminfo foo.vhd

   result: /tmp/foo.vhd has been issued a UUID and added to the registry with its file location


2. You want to convert the .vhd into a .vdi to use in a new vm

   root@expo:/tmp # vboxmanage clonehd foo.vhd foo.vdi --format VDI

   result: /tmp/foo.vdi has been created and issued a UUID and added to the registry with its file location


3. You move the new .vdi to the vm directory where you will use it

   root@expo:/tmp # mv foo.vdi /export/vm/alamo/alamo-disk.vdi

   result: the registry is now corrupted and should be fixed

   root@expo:/tmp # vboxmanage list hdds
   root@expo:/tmp # vboxmanage modifymedium disk /tmp/foo.vdi --setlocation /export/vm/alamo/alamo-disk.vdi


4. You delete the .vhd since you no longer need it

   root@expo:/tmp # rm foo.vhd

   result: the registry is now corrupted and should be fixed

   root@expo:/tmp # vboxmanage list hdds
   root@expo:/tmp # vboxmanage closemedium disk /tmp/foo.vhd


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