Recover a Drive Image from Host machine USB drive to VM guest m.

ittiandro said:

Hopachi,

Thanks for your hints
Regarding adding dvd drive 1 and 2 . a few questions:
1. first, I suppose they have to be on the same VBox machine and I don’t have to create a 2nd one, right?.
2. Ref. Your -dvd-drive 1: is this the boot CD ( Aomei or Reflect) from which we boot to do a Back or a Restore? If so, does this boot CD have to be physically in the CD-ROM drive? If not, how is it virtualized so that I can point to it in the Storage settings?
3. Ref. your -disk-drive 2: this would be the full Aomei or Macrium Drive Image ( 90 GB), the problem .
To wrap it up: basically, I would have to create only one more virtual drive ( your drive #1 for the boot disc) ), because the other drive( your drive #1, for the DRv Image full recovery) already exists in my VBOX . This is the drive that the Vbox can’t see because it says it cannot find a bootable medium .
4. Regarding the steps to do all this:
4a. I assume I have to use the option “ create a new disk” in the Storage settings. Right?
4b. VDI or VHD?
4c. Virtual VDI file connected to disk drive #2 would have to be my wife’s DrImg file ( on Aomei or Macrium, I have both) This file is 90 GB!. Currently, this file is already in the Storage settings.

I can see now why I cannot download the Folder2ISO: you provide no direct link and we are supposed to download through the CLOUD /Google Drive. I am not familiar neither with the Cloud topology nor with the Google Drive. I simply don’t use it.

THanks

Ittiandro

- - - Updated - - -



Thanks for your patience, Cereberus, but I begin to think that perhaps this is beyond a solution.
Admittedly my answer was a bit longish, but the solution of problems often requires more words than we are prepared or willing to read or hear. .I think that in the circumstances I have been as clear as I could and should be, hence the details.
There are two possible reasons for the problem I raised in this thread: either I am doing something wrong in the VBox settings or what I am trying to do cannot be done because of the system’s constraints. I haven’t heard anybody bringing in the latter possibility, so I think more of the 1st possibility: wrong settings, particularly the Storage settings. . This is why I described them.

Concerning the Macrium tutorial, I don’t have Macrium ViBoot. I’ll see if I can get it. May be it will help, but definitely, there must be a reason why my Vbox cannot boot from my wife’s DriVe IMG file.

Thanks for your help.

Ittiandro

I give up - you are just not listening to posts or understanding.

Viboot is so easy to use.

I am sorry to say but your basic issue is you are trying to be too ambitious without actually learning the basics.
There are many excellent tutorials on this site. Take the time to understand them and develop your skill set.

ittiandro said:

Regarding adding dvd drive 1 and 2 . a few questions:
1. first, I suppose they have to be on the same VBox machine and I don’t have to create a 2nd one, right?.
2. Ref. Your -dvd-drive 1: is this the boot CD ( Aomei or Reflect) from which we boot to do a Back or a Restore? If so, does this boot CD have to be physically in the CD-ROM drive? If not, how is it virtualized so that I can point to it in the Storage settings?
3. Ref. your -disk-drive 2: this would be the full Aomei or Macrium Drive Image ( 90 GB), the problem .
To wrap it up: basically, I would have to create only one more virtual drive ( your drive #1 for the boot disc) ), because the other drive( your drive #1, for the DRv Image full recovery) already exists in my VBOX . This is the drive that the Vbox can’t see because it says it cannot find a bootable medium .
4. Regarding the steps to do all this:
4a. I assume I have to use the option “ create a new disk” in the Storage settings. Right?
4b. VDI or VHD?
4c. Virtual VDI file connected to disk drive #2 would have to be my wife’s DrImg file ( on Aomei or Macrium, I have both) This file is 90 GB!. Currently, this file is already in the Storage settings.

1. Yes, of course same VM.
2. Yes
3. No. This is the main disk drive for the OS to be restored to => an EMPTY VDI or VHD should be fine.
You do need a second DVD drive for the backup image if I understood correctly.
4a. This is usually presented when you create the VM in the first steps but yes.
4b. If you only use VBox then choose VDI.
4c. I'm confused here; do you have two diosk drives in VM? It's not clear from this onwards, second DVD drive is for the image: why do you bother with creating an ISO otherwise?

Can you post a screenshot of VBox with the VM settings to clear this up?
That would simplify things a lot.

ittiandro said:

I can see now why I cannot download the Folder2ISO: you provide no direct link and we are supposed to download through the CLOUD /Google Drive. I am not familiar neither with the Cloud topology nor with the Google Drive. I simply don’t use it.

I do not provide anything. It is there on the website to choose from.
You do not understand: it is irrelevant what your familiarity is in the cloud, the link works fine and you don't need to use cloud, no need to login anywhere, you just download.

ittiandro said:

Incidentally, the Macrium Vi-Boot might well be the solution, but from their site and elsewhere it is for 64-bits. Neither could I find a link to download it, even on a trial basis. Blame it on my lack of “ basic” knowledge? I’d love to be proven wrong and be shown how can I download.it for a trial here in Canada.

Regarding your frank comment, I wouldn't seek help from your Forum if I were an expert on virtualization, would I, Cereberus ? ?

You are certainly one, but you cannot set your own high level of expertise as the standard for “basic” knowledge and then pass judgment on others, like me, because they don’t listen or read what others say and engage in "ambitious" plans without having a shred of knowledge. In other words you are saying that I shouldn't waste your time without doing my part to learn the basics first.

But basics I must have learnt, I guess, if, after two week on the web and on your Forum, I was finally able to set up my first VBox and get it working like a regular Windows OS. .

The problem is that my issue goes well beyond the basics, as it deals with a very specific and unusual situation : recovering Drive Imges between two PC’s in a virtual environment.
There is a fair amount of shooting in the dark ( on both sides) . I don’t want to blame anybody for this, because I don’t think many people in the Forum ever dealt with this issue before.

The task at hand is like a wasp’s nest, because it keeps unleashing other collateral errors dealing with just about everything in the computer field, like networking, failed network adapters or links that are “ down”... : the latest error message, for inst, is about a link “ tx:: 0 TXE rx0 RXE" apparently down. ( iPXE - open source boot firmware [start].
I don’t have a clue about why and what it is, but it cripples my VBox.
I
Thanks for your frank comment and for your help.

Ittiandro, Canada

I am not judging - I mentioned Viboot as the easiest way, gave a tutorial but you never even tried it as far as I can tell.

If you want help, takes small steps, post images etc. We are not a technical support line so you have to learn the basics yourself.

How do you think I learnt - many days of reading tutorials, videos taking one step at a time. I knew nothing when I first started.

This statement is so untrue.

"The problem is that my issue goes well beyond the basics, as it deals with a very specific and unusual situation : recovering Drive Images between two PC’s in a virtual environment."

Regulars here do this all the time in their sleep.

I told you what to do - only 5 steps

1) Install Macrium Reflect on both PCs
2) Install Macrium Viboot on your PC
3) Image 1st image PC
4) Copy image to 2nd PC
5) Run Viboot on 2nd PC, and select Reflect image (following steps in tutorial link)

This presupposes you have installed Virtualbox or Hyper-V correctly.

ittiandro said:

Something dawned upon me regarding Vi-Boot. Better late than never! I have a hunch that I had wrongly understood the meaning of Vi-Boot! I had assumed all along that it is a new Macrium Reflect version, but I begin to think that Vi-Boot means the Rescue facility, accessible by opening the Reflect app and clicking on the Rescue icon top left.

viBoot is installed along with Macriium Reflect, but it is an independent app in its own right and does not rely on any other part of the Reflect install.

What it does is take a Macrium image, treat it as a virtual disk, and create a second differencing virtual disk linked to the original, one that can be modified without changing the original image file. It then creates a virtual machine that will boot from this differencing disk, either for Hyper-V or for Virtualbox depending on which your PC has available.

ittiandro said:

.... I wonder if you have any suggestions about my post of yesterday.
I got to your stage 9 ( Map network drive) but I am blocked by an error message on a blue background. I'll give some details, just in case. THe messgage says that I should run a diagnostic tool or do a memory check..( which I did) . Perhaps a faulty or mismatched memory , hardware or driver changes...Run in Safe mode. etc
The error code is : Stop 0x0000007f + a bunch of 0..
I wonder if you or anybody have a clue. I Powered VBox off and on, rebooted the computer, run Safe mode, unsuccessfully. The guest additions and extensions are in..Your guidelines are very clear, but I can't see the end, even though I made a substantial progress by reading the tutorial.

If you are getting a BSOD (blue screen of death) with STOP: 0x0000007F then that rather rules out using networking.

Microsoft said:

This issue is caused by stack exhaustion that occurs when the computer sends and receives Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or Server Message Block (SMB) data. Stack exhaustion occurs because the thread on which the TCP and SMB data is received and sent does not have sufficient stack space to complete the call.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-6fe54570b028

While there should be a way to fix this, it may take too a long time to diagnose. Anyway, it's only an issue when booted from the rescue ISO, once the restore is completed you won't need to do that again. There are other ways to skin a cat, we should be able to get your VBox to see the image drive without needing networking.

Give me a while to test a few options and I'll get back to you......

Bree said:

....There are other ways to skin a cat, we should be able to get your VBox to see the image drive without needing networking.
Give me a while to test a few options and I'll get back to you......

@ittiandro here is an alternative way to make the image available for restore that does not require networking. It's a little more complicated though. We are going to make another virtual disk, copy the image file to it, then attach the virtual disk as a second drive for the VM.

First make a new virtual disk. Open Disk Management. Click Action > Create VHD. Choose to make an expanding .VHD, and a folder and filename for it (C:\temp\images.vhd in my example). Make sure you create a .vhd that is large enough to hold your image file.



Next you need to initialize the new virtual drive. In Disk Management right-click on the name of the new drive, the grey box to the left.



Choose to initialise as MBR. Once initialised you can right-click on the drive to format it and assign a drive letter.



Now copy your system image to the drive using File Explorer. When done you need to detach the virtual drive, you can do this in Disk Management.



Now we can attach this .vhd to the VirtualBox VM. In VirtualBox Manager select Tools and click the Add Disk icon (green + sign). Browse and find your .vhd file.



Then open Settings for your VM. In Storage select the Controller: SATA and click the right most of the two 'add' icons to add a new hard drive.



Now when you boot the VM from the recovery ISO you can browse to this 2nd hard drive and select your image.




Once you have successfully completed the restore you can detach the images.vhd from the VM, then delete the .vhd file now it has served its purpose.