Solved CloneVDI tool for VirtualBox

Hi there

Maybe some of you already heard of this one but anyways here goes:

VMware allready have the functionality to clone a HDD through the graphical interface (be it in VMware Player, Workstation...). In VirtualBox you still had use the command prompt... until support was added in version 4.1.

CloneVDI is a standalone program that does the same but wit some extra features. I used it and it does the job pretty well with good speed. The UUID of the disk can be automatically generated (no more errors due to use of manually duplicated disks).

CloneVDI converts VHD's VMDK's VDI's to VDI disks to use in VirtualBox. More importantly: the size can be increased (expand your HDD).

CloneVDI is found on the VirtualBox forum:
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22422&sid=bda2717b56075bbea9720c7723295d57

the binary:
https://forums.virtualbox.org/download/file.php?id=4671

It should be a zip of the binary. The maker is user mpack.

I found it easy to use and it makes VirtualBox even better.

This tool is a standalone and can work even if VBox is not installed.

Thanks
Hopachi

A second option for cloning virtual HDD's is using CloneVDIGUI.
It uses the internal VBoxManage and gives command through command prompt but provides a graphical interface for the user.

It requires .Net 3.5 and works pretty well too. Note that for some recent x64 versions of VirtualBox it doesn't detect the version but is still able to clone by using VBox v.3 or 4 syntax which still applies on later versions.

You need to put the CloneVDIGUI in VirtualBox folder (usualy "../Program Files/Oracle/VirtualBox") to detect VBoxManage

link:
VirtualBox - CloneVDI - ITworks

The third option, but which is already included in VBox (using VBox 4.1 and above ONLY) is to right click on a VM in The VBox Manager and choose clone.
Then a copy/clone of the full machine is made including the cloned HDD's.

Epilogue:

This line will sound messy for some but, obviously, the fourth method for cloning a HDD in VBox is using the command prompt:
VBoxManage clonehd "inputfile" "outputfile" --format "VDI" (or "VMDK" , "VHD", "RAW") --variant "STANDARD" (or Fixed, Split2G, Stream, ESX).

This is the command that can be given in a graphical interface CloneVDIGUI (see post 2).

All four options mentioned previously work well.

But most users still need something like what VMware has:
-you can simply copy paste a vmdk HDD and it works directly in any VM.

Copy pasting HDD files and using the copy in VBox will not work because the program will complain about duplicate UUID's (HDD's unique identifier) and say that the HDD already exists and cannot be used...

Maybe they'll consider about removing the UUID option in the future, who knows ,but in the meantime we need to clone the hard drives properly if using VirtualBox.

The choice of the favorite cloning method is for the user.

End of the story.