VirtualBox: Error: Cannot register the hard disk | 33 Comments

Posted in Code, Linux/Unix on 23rd July 2009, 10:27 am by Stuart

If when cloning VirtualBox VMs you get an error like this:

$ VBoxManage clonehd WinXP-IE7.vdi WinXP-IE8.vdi 
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 2.2.4
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

ERROR: Cannot register the hard disk '/home/scol/.VirtualBox/VDI/WinXP-IE7.vdi' with UUID {3858b1b1-c306-4505-8264-235af812f337} because a hard disk '/home/scol/.VirtualBox/VDI/WinXP-IE7.vdi' with UUID {3858b1b1-c306-4505-8264-235af812f337} already exists in the media registry ('/home/scol/.VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml')
Details: code NS_ERROR_INVALID_ARG (0x80070057), component VirtualBox, interface IVirtualBox, callee nsISupports
Context: "OpenHardDisk(Bstr(szFilenameAbs), AccessMode_ReadWrite, srcDisk.asOutParam())" at line 603 of file VBoxManageDisk.cpp

Talk about a completely ambiguous error message! The solution is to provide an absolute path to the source VDI and target VDIs (leaving the path off the target will put the image in ~/.VirtualBox/HardDisks by default):

$ VBoxManage clonehd $(pwd)/WinXP-IE7.vdi $(pwd)/WinXP-IE8.vdi 
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 2.2.4
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%
Clone hard disk created in format 'VDI'. UUID: b7166421-9743-4808-aedf-3c90aeb7c902

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Insert a tab character in vim when expand tabs is on|(0)

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That is Ctrl and “V” and hit the tab key, et voila you’ve entered an actual tab.

http://blog.rajatpandit.com Rajat Pandit

perfect timing, was about to make clones of the clean xp install to setup the browser lab.
MikeG

This worked for me:
$ VBoxManage clonevdi `pwd`/SDisk.vdi `pwd`/DDisk.vdi

assuming you are in the directory for both the source and dest. disk
http://muffinresearch.co.uk Stuart Colville

@MikeG: Yep that works as $(pwd) and `pwd` are equivalent.
Gabriele Violino

thank you!!!
Mark

Thanks for the great information!
Sibi

Thx for that! I’ve been struggling for several hours now…
Mircsicz

This shoukd be part of the VBox UserManual.pdf … Have spent half an hour on google to find your very helpful tip!
CPP

Great help – you made my day!!
I had no idea what that stupid error meant. Gave me hours of headache
N6LG

Thank you for saving me a a lot of time.

N6LG – San Francisco, Ca
http://tuzemec.com Tuzemec

Thanx man… saved me a lot of swearings
shinki

Thanks a lot for this!
pete

Thanks so much for pointing out that we needed the full path of the source file. Very obscure error message that one.

Hate to think how long it would have taken me to figure that one myself.

Cheers
http://www.haykranen.nl/en/ Hay

Thanks! What a stupid error message, i wouldn’t have figured out i needed absolute paths without finding this article!
Trent

Just tried your solution, and the same error occured.

I ran: VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid Windows.vdi

and that seemed to do the trick
James

The above recommendations did not work for me in a windows environment, but fortunitely Trent’s recommendation did

VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid MYBox.vdi

where MYBox.vdi is the name of the virtual HD I copied.
AK

Thanks a lot, this was a real timesaver!
http://www.rohidekar.com Sridhar Sarnobat

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had the same problem and it was because I was cd’ing to the dir and just providing the relative paths to the source and destination vdi files. It works now.
http://blog.zebsadiq.com Zeb

Thanks dude… that fixed the issue for me.
kraklakvakve

Thanks a lot, how did you find this out?
Chandra

Thank you so much for the solution….it saved me time.
otto_xd

Hello.

After several attempts, nothing worked for me.

The issue in my case was the spaces in the paths, when i remove them, it works!

Thank you very much and sorry for my horrible English xD
Elanor

Thank you I had no idea what was going wrong.
http://ricochen.wordpress.com Rico Chen

Thanks this has saved me a lot of time googling for a fix.
http://statusq.org Quentin

Just another vote of thanks!
max

Thank you a lot !
Save me a lot of time …
my 2cents

I experienced the problem because the folder where the ISO file was kept (which virtual box read from) was in read-only mode.

After i unchecked read only … worked like a charm
juandedios

if you have the character space in the path use character ‘

example:

VBoxManage clonevdi ‘/media/MASDATOS/Maquinas Virtuales/virtualBOX/WindowsXP2/DiscoWinxp2.vdi’ ‘/media/MASDATOS/Maquinas Virtuales/virtualBOX/WindowsXP2/DiscoWinxp3.vdi’

thanks a lot.
Callum

Many thanks I have been hidiously stuck with that for a while now…
2d

Great!
kszys

This is not entirely correct. What needs to be provided is the same path that already exists in the configuration file. Usually it is the full path, but not necessarily… Just check what is there and use the same (changing your current folder if necessary).
jad

thank you very much!
http://morganizeit.com Morganizer

Thanks so much! I was completely stumped.
Alex

Thank you!

Muffinresearch Labs by Stuart Colville

VirtualBox: Error: Cannot register the hard disk | 33 Comments

Posted in Code, Linux/Unix on 23rd July 2009, 10:27 am by Stuart

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