[OpenIndiana-discuss] Re-installing an OI vm after OS crash

[Harry Putnam]

Jim Klimov <jimklimov at cos.ru> writes:

> On 2014-03-18 21:24, Harry Putnam wrote:
>> 2) Can I just replace the new ~/.VirtualBox with the old to regain
>>     whatever info was there about my OI install?
>>
>> Note that the currently installed version of VirtualBox is at least
>> one version newer than the one in force when OI was last used.
>>
>> 3) Is it just a matter of unpacking the previous 'vb' hierarchy on a
>> partition, overwriting ~/.VirtualBox with the old one... and away we
>> go? Or is it more complicated?
>
> It may be more complicated: the config file layout and format has
> changed a few times in the past, so it is possible that your new
> VirtualBox software does not use the old format anymore. Likely
> it can migrate/import the old configs, but I've never checked.
>
> It seems more fruitful to recreate the VM definitions and have
> those newly defined VM's use your old HDD images.
>
> Make a copy of one or two and experiment first, before you'd ruin
> your only copies, however ;)
>
> //Jim

Thanks Jim, as always, great advice.

I can report that I got impatient and since the vm didn't have
anything really that serious on it... (I would rather not lose some of
it of course) I took the gamble.

Once I looked at how simple the xml files really were, I just edited
the new ones to suite. 

One thing I did run into was a problem virtual disc... once it came up I
remembered vaguely seeing similar errors before the big changeover
too.

It involved a specific disc being reported off line when in fact it
was where it was being reported not to be.  

I still don't know why that is, but I finally remembered some name
changing in previous setup where I'd inadvertently created a disc with
an odd name compared to the others.

When renaming it, that brought errors, so I finally just made a new
disc with the name I wanted.. and just left the old one there.  So it
isn't actually a problem.  I can just delete it at some point when I'm
really sure there is nothing on it that has not been duplicated onto a
new disc.

Since the vm was in a 'saved' status instead of a closed status when
the crash occurred, it was reporting on the basis of the saved state.
Fortunately it still allowed me to start the vm OS and so I ran it,
checked things out then formally closed it, deleting the disc in
question.... all good now.

I've closed and restarted a couple times now and it comes up with no
errors reported.

Fortunately for me  there were not the kind of changes between
versions that would cause a big mess.... I should have looked at the
changes for the new version, at least, but did not even do that.

Got away lucky this time....