Annoyance with ViBoot Losing VHD's, Visible but not Usable in Hyper-V

It's common for ViBoot to lose a virtual machine.

I'm aware of the problem of using checkpoints with ViBoot; sometimes removing checkpoints will allow ViBoot to see the virtual machine again. This is not always the case. I have a virtual machine created using ViBoot that is only visible in Hyper-V, but the machine will not run using Hyper-V -- the machine starts but never boots. Even with checkpoints turned off, something is corrupting the image. The only solution is to delete the machine using hyper-v and starting over.

The problem is more of an annoyance, since I always have a current Macrium backup available to reload. Why is this happening?

- - - Updated - - -

I neglected to state that the base image contains several incremental updates. I will try viboot using only a base image (no incrementals) and see if this behaves better.

I have never tried VIboot with incremental's, but I have not had any problems with Hyper-V and VIBoot using checkpoints. My problem was that I did 1 to many checkpoints and ran out of disk space - lol ! Ended up having to delete it and started again with a Clean image of 1809 of which I was updating to 1903. As long as I managed the checkpoints, i have been good to go. I may have something to do with the incremental's. Lets see what other members have seen.

storageman said:

I have never tried VIboot with incremental's, but I have not had any problems with Hyper-V and VIBoot using checkpoints. My problem was that I did 1 to many checkpoints and ran out of disk space - lol ! Ended up having to delete it and started again with a Clean image of 1809 of which I was updating to 1903. As long as I managed the checkpoints, i have been good to go. I may have something to do with the incremental's. Lets see what other members have seen.

I just turned on checkpoints with a 'base' image (no incrementals). We'll see how this goes.
(UPDATE)
The minute I added a checkpoint using Hyper-V viboot lost the machine! Deleting the checkpoint and refreshing viboot found the machine again.

Bree said:

PS: actually, I only use viBoot as a temporary measure, either to check the integrity of an image or to run an old image to have a quick look at how it was working back then. When I want to run a VM based on a Macrium image for somewhat longer I create a new VM in Hyper-V Manager and and configure it to boot from an ISO to install the OS. I then boot it from a Macrium rescue ISO and restore an image (I usually need to use 'Fix Windows Boot Problems' before it will boot). That way I'm not using viBoot so I can use as many checkpoints as I want.

We're on the same page here -- I only use viboot on a temporary basis. Your use of an iso rescue disk to avoid viboot completely is clever.
I still don't understand if I immediately turn off and delete checkpoints with a viBoot machine why the machine will run under Hyper-V for a time and then mysteriously stop working a few days later. As I mentioned before, it's no big deal because I always have the backup available to regenerate a virtual machine quickly.

hanks said:

We're on the same page here -- I only use viboot on a temporary basis. Your use of an iso rescue disk to avoid viboot completely is clever.

I currently have (and am replying from) a VM (restored from the Macrium image of my main machine) which I have test-upgraded to 1903. There is another way to convert a VM from viBoot to a standard Hyper-V VM. You export the viBoot VM using Hyper-V Manager, then you can import it as a normal Hyper-V VM.

I still don't understand if I immediately turn off and delete checkpoints with a viBoot machine why the machine will run under Hyper-V for a time and then mysteriously stop working a few days later...

Can't say, I don't think I've ever kept a viBoot VM for more than a day

Hmm - There must be something I have set or I'm using VIBoot in a different manor. I really don't see this problem. The viboot image was 1809, and I performed an in place upgrade to it using a UUP ISO that was for 1903. If you look at the screen print, you can see that it has 1 checkpoint now ?



In fact its running right now.

storageman said:

Hmm - There must be something I have set or I'm using VIBoot in a different manor. I really don't see this problem. The viboot image was 1809, and I performed an in place upgrade to it using a UUP ISO that was for 1903. If you look at the screen print, you can see that it has 1 checkpoint now ?


In fact its running right now.

I have a viboot image of my system that has been up for a few days; it is set up for standard checkpoints. So far so good. The difference is the original image has NO incremental backups. That my be the problem.

Another issue: The viboot image will not export -- all my hyper-v images export nicely, but a machine created with viboot will not export. Try it.

I thought it completed, but it just got an error. Looks like that does fail ?


Would one use "Export" to move all of their Hyper-V systems to another larger disk ?

storageman said:

I thought it completed, but it just got an error. Looks like that does fail ?


Would one use "Export" to move all of their Hyper-V systems to another larger disk ?

I was trying to export the viboot machine to another location and then import it as a pure Hyper-v machine. It didn't work. In addition, Hyper-v added a checkpoint and the machine disappeared from the viboot program. Deleting the checkpoint and refreshing viboot found the machine. As others point out, viboot doesn't play well with checkpoints.

Bree in this thread mentioned another way to create a clean hyper-v image using the Macrium rescue ISO. I may experiment with that.

viBoot works very well as long as you avoid checkpoints and don't try to export it.