<Answered>How Do You Save VB?

[Ray2047]

With the new upgrade coming I'd like to do a clean install. Most files are easy enough to save and transfer but after months of searching I really don't have much of a clue on how to save and reinstall Virtual box. I will do it CL if no other way but CL is a lot harder for me to understand because the explanations don't cover simple basics of how to just what to do. Can someone point me to an idiots guide to transferring VB to a new install. Thanks in advance.

At one point I thought maybe burn the whole home file to DVD but it is way to large. Even just saving my Win2K, the one I really don't want to have to reinstall, would exceed a DVD.  

[Old-Polack]

With the new upgrade coming I'd like to do a clean install. Most files are easy enough to save and transfer but after months of searching I really don't have much of a clue on how to save and reinstall Virtual box. I will do it CL if no other way but CL is a lot harder for me to understand because the explanations don't cover simple basics of how to just what to do. Can someone point me to an idiots guide to transferring VB to a new install. Thanks in advance.

At one point I thought maybe burn the whole home file to DVD but it is way to large. Even just saving my Win2K, the one I really don't want to have to reinstall, would exceed a DVD. 

If you are doing a clean install, you can't save an installed application from the last installation. You need to install VB to the new installation, just as you did in the last installation. If you've created your VMs in the /home/<you>/.VirtualBox directory, as is the default, they will still be usable if you don't format your /home partition. If not, wherever you created them, you will either need to not format that partition, or back them up somewhere else.

[Duvid]

Virtual Box creates a .VDI folder in which each operating system is installed. It is actually much smaller in size that you originally allocated  on the original installation of the OS.You can then copy this folder to an external drive, DVD, or an empty partition to backup. After the clean install of PCLOS, install VBox and set up your OS this way. Recreate the name of the OS as before. Instead of created a new hard disk, use existing hard disk. Just put the vdi file where you know where it is. I prefer to keep my vdi file in a folder in a very large data partition, instead of /home where VB creates it. Click next then it bring you to the VBox startup screen as usual with the name of your OS. Now you have everything back just as it was. I have used the same VDI folder of my Win XP in different computers, and for similar reasons as yours  

[Ray2047]

Thank you for the answers.

[davidwillis]

Virtual Box creates a .VDI folder in which each operating system is installed. It is actually much smaller in size that you originally allocated  on the original installation of the OS.You can then copy this folder to an external drive, DVD, or an empty partition to backup. After the clean install of PCLOS, install VBox and set up your OS this way. Recreate the name of the OS as before. Instead of created a new hard disk, use existing hard disk. Just put the vdi file where you know where it is. I prefer to keep my vdi file in a folder in a very large data partition, instead of /home where VB creates it. Click next then it bring you to the VBox startup screen as usual with the name of your OS. Now you have everything back just as it was. I have used the same VDI folder of my Win XP in different computers, and for similar reasons as yours  

cool... Thanks for that information... I was reading up on it, and everywhere says you have to use

VBoxManage clonevdi source destination

So is that not necessary?

[7272andy]

I currently have Windows XP, Windows 7, PCLinuxOS KDE3.x and PCLinuxOS KDE4.x as virtual machines. I take copies of the VDI files occasionally on an external drive for use on another machine. The process is just as Duvid says, and totally painless.

Regards
Andy

[menotu]

So is that not necessary?

Nope.

I do the same as Duvid and 7272andy and simply copy/move the VDI files to another location and hey presto they are there to be used at will - in fact you don't even need to move the VDI's back to the original location - simply point the Virtual Media Manager in VBox to where they are located.