Skip to main content

VirtualBox: Purge deleted hard disks.

info

Published Date: 28-JAN-2019

Just some quick notes on when I tried to re-attach a disk that was initially "missing" according to VirtualBox; moved the HDD to a different directory and got a "this disk already exists" error when trying to add it back in.

Found some very straight forward instructions from, and full credit to coderwall.com (reference below). I just wanted to capture my process of this with some screenshots as well.

Pre-requisites​

things you'll need installed to follow along

  • VirtualBox
  • access and know where your VBoxManage.exe is (I'm doing this on my windoze machine) cos we're running some CLI

Missing disk​

missing disk

Error: Disk UUID already exists​

Ok, so locate the disk and try and add it:

disk error

Get this error

disk error

Fix with VBoxManage.exe​

Right, find your VirtualBox binaries and run the following

vboxmanage list hdds

For me in MobaXterm that looks like this: mobaxterm

grab that UUID and delete it from then delete it from VirtualBox

vboxmanage closemedium disk <uuid /> --delete

for some reason when I did this, I got an error mobaxterm

But I was able to successfully add it back in anyway, so yea... dunno about that... Anyway, re-tried it with another entry and this is what a successful command run looks like

mobaxterm

Conclusion​

I know vboxmanage has a tonne of other cool stuff you can do from the command line, e.g. vagrant utilises a lot of this when scripting virtual machine builds which is bloody cool.

References​

Enjoying the docs? Good.

The docs are the how. The newsletter is the what... as in, what the f*** — AI, power, Big Tech and the tech industry, through a Pasifika lens, from an engineer who's spent twenty-plus years working inside the machine. Fortnightly. No filter.

Leave whenever.

Get the newsletter →