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VirtualBox clone a virtual drive image

Cloning a drive to a new drive is simple:

VBoxManage clonehd existing_current_version.vdi new_target.vdi

Or if you wish to clone to a existing drive use “–existing”

VBoxManage clonehd existing_current_version.vdi existing_target.vdi --existing

Note on using “–existing”: If the existing_target is smaller than the existing_current_version then only the part that will “fit” is copied … so this usually [for windows at least] means that the resulting virtual drive is corrupted; so make sure the target is as large or larger than the existing_version. To modify the size of a virtual drive image check out how to resize a drive.

Note: Older versions of VirtualBox used the command clonevdi instead. At the moment the manual says the following about this “For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the “clonevdi” command is also supported and mapped internally to the “clonehd” command.”

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2011 at 19:46 and is filed under VirtualBox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “VirtualBox clone a virtual drive image”

  1. VirtualBox resize an existing vdi file « Jontas says:
    2011 November 7 at 19:45

    [...] use the guest OS to take advantage of this extra space repartition the drives (or simply clone a from a larger drive if that is [...]

  2. Casper says:
    2011 December 1 at 23:13

    clonevdi is deprecated. You should use clonehd instead.

  3. jontas says:
    2011 December 6 at 09:46

    Thanks for pointing that out, I have now updated the post to use clonehd instead.

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