VirtualBox

Opened 13 years ago

Closed 8 years ago

Last modified 6 years ago

#7898 closed defect (obsolete)

media manager in 4.0.0 does not have add media option

Reported by: N2Deep Owned by:
Component: GUI Version: VirtualBox 4.0.0
Keywords: gui, vmm, disk, vdi Cc:
Guest type: other Host type: Windows

Description (last modified by Frank Mehnert)

In VirtualBox 4.0.0 virtual media manager there is no 'add' option. Therefore you can not create new virtual disks for machines that are currently powered on. This is a serious problem because thick provisioning disks can take a long amount of time, for large disks.

To create a new virtual disk one must first power down a vm, then 'edit settings' This is blocking because you -can not- edit settings while a virtual machine is running.

A vm must be powered down to create a new -disk- for any vm in 4.0.0.

The work around right now is to create a 'junk vm' just so you can create a new disk for a vm that is currently running. Once disk is provisioned, poweroff the virtual machine you really want the new disk for, edit settings and attach the disk you created for the 'junk vm'. Now remove the junk vm and select 'remove only' when it asks about what to do with the files for junk vm.

Change History (10)

comment:1 by guntbert, 13 years ago

In my opinion the goal of storing the VDisks in the directory of the VM could be achieved from virtual media manager as well.. (and I'm not at all certain that it is a good idea).

comment:2 by luxifer, 13 years ago

I second that. This is just dump. I guess Oracle finally hits VirtualBox after hitting OpenOffice.org and Java. But hey: At least it's completely open source now and some people will eventually fork it in the near future - leading it to a whole new level (hopefully). Plus there are more serious problems with that release: insane memory leaks for example.

But there's a trick: drag and drop the vdi file into the manager. Doesn't work always though. Sometimes I had to completely restart VirtualBox (i.e. Stopping ALL VMs, closing the manager and killing VboxSvc.exe if still there and then starting VirtualBox again) to be able to do this. And even then VirtualBox doesn't always remember the setting.

comment:3 by Jason, 13 years ago

I third that. I don't see why you would cripple functionality in the GUI while leaving it in the CLI. Backwards progress is the wrong sort of progress.

comment:4 by Frank Mehnert, 13 years ago

The media manager will get more functionality in the future. The add disk function will be restored but it will be possible to create more disk formats, not only .vdi like before.

For the time being (if you need to create a disk in the background), do it by creating a new VM or by editing a powered down VM. This is only a workaround but it works.

comment:5 by Frank Mehnert, 13 years ago

priority: criticalmajor

comment:6 by Brian Leonard, 13 years ago

I have to add my support here. It makes documenting how to use VirtualBox much more difficult.

comment:7 by positron96, 12 years ago

I find deletion of this feature very uncomfortable too. This feature-cut and http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8212 heavily limit usefullness of Media manager; however, it was very useful in previous versions. In 4.* versions image management is not so user-friendly and convenient.

comment:8 by Frank Mehnert, 10 years ago

Description: modified (diff)

Actually the 'add disk' functionality is more tricky than it seems. Disk images (as well as CDROM/DVD images and floppy images) are stored in the per-VM settings file. The media manager only lists all media of all VMs and allows to manipulate them. But an 'add medium' function in the media manager would require to specify the VM to which the medium belongs to.

comment:9 by aeichner, 8 years ago

Resolution: obsolete
Status: newclosed

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.

This is still relevant but as Frank already pointed out in the last comment we are not planning to add this feature anytime soon because the media handling changed from being global to a per VM approach. So this will still be kept closed.

Last edited 8 years ago by aeichner (previous) (diff)

in reply to:  description comment:10 by VirtualGuts, 6 years ago

For those interested in manually modifying virtual media manager, go to the following files below where I list an example of Virtual Box primary file (.xml) and an example VM (.vbox). When looking for the VM associated, click the Optical Disks and the one's in question with an error look under Attached to, which will show the VM. That's the VM (.vbox) file we will be modifying.

1) VirtualBox.xml (this is the main primary file for all VM's living under the hood)
<ExtraDataItem name="GUI\RecentListCD" value="E:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso"/>

FIX: I was getting an error with the path for E: drive after I moved my files to a SSD D: drive I changed the value in the path from E: to D:.

2) Ubuntu (16.04) - Ark Server.vbox (Example VM)
<DVDImages>
<Image uuid="{d7cf41d4-c573-4d17-aebb-780a5d9e2645}" location="D:/VM/ISO/ubuntu-16.04.1-server-amd64.iso"/>
<Image uuid="{b6e07a90-0418-47da-9ff1-6c1d78f30736}" location="D:/Program Files/Oracle/VirtualBox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso"/>
</DVDImages>

FIX: Now here is the virtual media manager I already modified the values but as you can see I have two DVD images that were formally on the E: drive and coming back with an error and were fixed after I saved the file.

Note: It's recommended to exit out of all VM's & Virtual Box. Most VM's must not be in a saved state (snapshot) while modifying these relevant files. If you do move or copy your VM's to another drive you will have to fix the paths under the same files.

Here are some error examples if you modify while they are open:

#While modifying machine state while saved via notepad in .vbox settings:
The shared folder 'linux-ark-svr' could not be set up: Shared folder path 'E:\VM\VM Share\linux-ark-svr' does not exist on the host. The shared folder setup will not be complete. It is recommended to power down the virtual machine and fix the shared folder settings while the machine is not running.

Error ID: BrokenSharedFolder Severity: Warning

#When modifying shared folders while machine is in saved state:
The machine is not mutable or running (state is Saved).

Result Code: VBOX_E_INVALID_VM_STATE (0x80BB0002) Component: SessionMachine Interface: IMachine {b2547866-a0a1-4391-8b86-6952d82efaa0}



Replying to N2Deep:

In VirtualBox 4.0.0 virtual media manager there is no 'add' option. Therefore you can not create new virtual disks for machines that are currently powered on. This is a serious problem because thick provisioning disks can take a long amount of time, for large disks.

To create a new virtual disk one must first power down a vm, then 'edit settings' This is blocking because you -can not- edit settings while a virtual machine is running.

A vm must be powered down to create a new -disk- for any vm in 4.0.0.

The work around right now is to create a 'junk vm' just so you can create a new disk for a vm that is currently running. Once disk is provisioned, poweroff the virtual machine you really want the new disk for, edit settings and attach the disk you created for the 'junk vm'. Now remove the junk vm and select 'remove only' when it asks about what to do with the files for junk vm.

Last edited 6 years ago by VirtualGuts (previous) (diff)
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