I'm nearly there with the transition to W7 64bit. Last part is installing a VM and shoving D6 in there under Vista 32 bit. I want to use an Acronis image to recover from.

I've installed VirtualBox but it seems impossible to access anything outside of the VM.

Anyone any ideas?


Roy Lambert

On 11/23/2013 2:01 PM, Roy Lambert wrote:
> I'm nearly there with the transition to W7 64bit. Last part is installing a VM and shoving D6 in there under Vista 32 bit. I want to use an Acronis image to recover from.
> I've installed VirtualBox but it seems impossible to access anything outside of the VM.
> Anyone any ideas?

While i don't use Virtualbox myself they do have a concept of shared
folder - quick google shows it requires  something called called guest
additions (http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#sharedfolders).

This does require the OS to be there and guest additions be installed so
if you're trying to do a bare metal (or bare virtual metal in this case)
restore then that won't help you.

Couple of suggestions to try :
- Acronis can handle network shares so try sharing your backup location
and then access it using over LAN using either SMB share or even ftp.
- Alterbaitve is to mount an external USB drive with your backup on it
and make it available to the VM. Then when you boot with the acronis CD
or iso you should be able to see it as additional drove.
- make an iso out of you backup and then mount is as 2nd CD

Raul

Roy Lambert wrote:

I'm nearly there with the transition to W7 64bit. Last part is installing a VM and shoving D6 in there under Vista 32 bit. I want to use an Acronis image to recover from.

I've installed VirtualBox but it seems impossible to access anything outside of the VM.

Anyone any ideas?


After you install the Guest Extensions as mentioned by Raul...

Create a folder, let's say "C:\VMSharedStuff".  In the VM manager box, select a machine (probably best for it to be powered off).  Click "Settings".  Last icon in the settings list is "Shared Folders".  Click the folder with a plus sign, at right.  Provide the Folder Path, assign a reasonable Folder Name, click Auto-mount and Make Permanent.  The folder should show up with a newly-assigned drive letter under Network Drives in Windows Explorer.

Raul / Charles


Thanks for that. I have got VirtualBox to recognise one shared drive (but only one). Found a website that tells you how to get an Acronis image loaded but I think they missed out sacrificing a black chicken at the full moon!

Installed VMWare Player (free version) but it doesn't seem to want to install Vista.


Remind me what people see in virtual machines.

Roy Lambert

Roy Lambert wrote:

> Raul / Charles
>
>
> Thanks for that. I have got VirtualBox to recognise one shared drive
> (but only one). Found a website that tells you how to get an Acronis
> image loaded but I think they missed out sacrificing a black chicken
> at the full moon!
>
> Installed VMWare Player (free version) but it doesn't seem to want to
> install Vista.
>
>
> Remind me what people see in virtual machines.
>
> Roy Lambert

Hi Roy

I have used VMWare Workstation for many years .. but it is not free!  
It can be used to create VMs which VMWare Player can access and use.
But I do not think that the Player can be used to create a new VM.

I looked at switching to VirtualBox, but I found limitations.  It
claims to allow copy&paste over the VM boundary but even when I
selected that option it would not work for me.  But I had no problem
with accessing network shares from within the 'Box'.  In the end I
uninstalled it after about one month and am living with VMWare
Workstation on my development PC (but not updating every year!) and
cloning my IDE VM to the Player on my laptop when on the road.

I can't remember the networking options in Virtual Box but for VMWare I
always change from the default Bridged to NAT to simplify things on my
LAN.

But if I get a new development PC, all I have to is install VMWare
Workstation then copy over my IDE VMs which is pretty painless.

I have VMs for:  XE2 (my main IDE); XE5 (for 2 mini Android apps so
far, probably migrate my VCL projects in due course); XE; D2009;
Elevate EWB; and a few test VMs.

Malcolm

Malcolm


>I have used VMWare Workstation for many years .. but it is not free!

Therein lies the problem. This is a hobby so I'm reluctant to spend a couple of hundred pounds for this.

>It can be used to create VMs which VMWare Player can access and use.
>But I do not think that the Player can be used to create a new VM.

In theory it can, just can't clone them. Twice it reached the stage of  just needed to finalise the installation of Vista and then froze.

>I looked at switching to VirtualBox, but I found limitations. It
>claims to allow copy&paste over the VM boundary but even when I
>selected that option it would not work for me. But I had no problem
>with accessing network shares from within the 'Box'. In the end I
>uninstalled it after about one month and am living with VMWare
>Workstation on my development PC (but not updating every year!) and
>cloning my IDE VM to the Player on my laptop when on the road.

I've found a few of the options so far that are reluctant to work. The manuals seem to be written for a High Wizard (ie I can't understand them)

>I can't remember the networking options in Virtual Box but for VMWare I
>always change from the default Bridged to NAT to simplify things on my
>LAN.

That's the default with VirtualBox. I've tried all options but none work.

>But if I get a new development PC, all I have to is install VMWare
>Workstation then copy over my IDE VMs which is pretty painless.
>
>I have VMs for: XE2 (my main IDE); XE5 (for 2 mini Android apps so
>far, probably migrate my VCL projects in due course); XE; D2009;
>Elevate EWB; and a few test VMs.

I'm not to worried about it. This is teh first time in 5 years I've altered things. I'm beginning to think I'll just keep the second disk as a dual boot. Real machines vs virtual machines

Roy

On 11/24/2013 6:57 AM, Roy Lambert wrote:
> Raul / Charles
> Thanks for that. I have got VirtualBox to recognise one shared drive (but only one). Found a website that tells you how to get an Acronis image loaded but I think they missed out sacrificing a black chicken at the full moon!

Acronis has a ISO bootable recovery environment available (right on
their download page) - in case of Vmware/Virtualbox you can just mount
it direct instead of CD and boot from it. Or burn CD and use it. It's a
linux environment and in my case at least i have full network access as
well as it can mount any USB external drives.

Is that what you tried ?


> Installed VMWare Player (free version) but it doesn't seem to want to install Vista.

What's the issue you're running into exactly ?

It used to be that vmware player was only able to run existing machine
but as of player v3(or v4) you definitely create new VMs as well so you
should be all set.

> Remind me what people see in virtual machines.

Never had the kind of issues you're running into and in my case the
benefits far outweigh any downsides.
Main downside is that things can run tiny bit slower in VM (not
noticeably though) especially if there is contention for disk or ram
(i.e. host swapping). however plenty of ram and SSD resolve those to my
satisfaction.
Upside for me is huge :
- fixed and stable dev environment (i don't even have Antivirus in there
since i have it on host and i'm careful about what i tun an include)
- really easy backup (literally backup 1 folder or even 1 file) and restore
- easy to try something (either using a copy of VM or snapshot and
ability to roll back)
- finally i have both workstation windows and fusion on mac and i can
just copy the virtual disk file across to "move" my current VM between
mac/windows (ftp takes less than 5 min).

I've actually given up on Acronis and switched to Drive Snapshot
(http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/) which allows me to do a full backup
weekly and daily disk differential (i use couple of VMs daily and diff
start around 200MB and ends up less than 1GB by end of week. Restore is
trivial as well since i can just mounr the backup as drive letter and
copy the files i need out. Finally drive snapshot has zero impact when
not running - there is no installer, no services. etc.

Raul

On 11/24/2013 12:05 PM, Malcolm wrote:
> Hi Roy
>
> I have used VMWare Workstation for many years .. but it is not free!
> It can be used to create VMs which VMWare Player can access and use.
> But I do not think that the Player can be used to create a new VM.

I believe this was changed with player v3 (or v4) - creating of new VMs
is possible.

Raul

Raul

>> Thanks for that. I have got VirtualBox to recognise one shared drive (but only one). Found a website that tells you how to get an Acronis image loaded but I think they missed out sacrificing a black chicken at the full moon!
>
>Acronis has a ISO bootable recovery environment available (right on
>their download page) - in case of Vmware/Virtualbox you can just mount
>it direct instead of CD and boot from it. Or burn CD and use it. It's a
>linux environment and in my case at least i have full network access as
>well as it can mount any USB external drives.
>
>Is that what you tried ?

Nope.Mainly because I don't understand what people have posted about this. I can boot from an Acronis recovery disk but then how do I start VirtualBox to get the image back into it? Plus I'm running Windows and the posts I've found talk about some flavour of Linux.

What I'm going to try today is to create a VM the size the OS needs plus the size of an Acronis image. Open it, shrink C: create a D: load the image into there and see if I can restore that.

So far I can't get VirtualBox AND Acronis to see anything outside of themselves. VirtualBox doesn't see the LAN, the internet or USB drives. However, I'll be happy with a single directory so I can move stuff in and out. In fact I like the idea of isolation.

>> Installed VMWare Player (free version) but it doesn't seem to want to install Vista.
>
>What's the issue you're running into exactly ?

No idea. It simply reaches the point of finishing the configuration (whatever the last line says) and then I just get the two dots appearing and disapearing. I gave it 30 mins and then zapped it.

>> Remind me what people see in virtual machines.

This was meant to be a rhetorical question and not requiring an answer

>Never had the kind of issues you're running into and in my case the
>benefits far outweigh any downsides.

I'm only intending it for D6 although I may leave D2006 in there so I can test out components.

>Main downside is that things can run tiny bit slower in VM (not
>noticeably though) especially if there is contention for disk or ram
>(i.e. host swapping). however plenty of ram and SSD resolve those to my
>satisfaction.
>Upside for me is huge :
>- fixed and stable dev environment (i don't even have Antivirus in there
>since i have it on host and i'm careful about what i tun an include)
>- really easy backup (literally backup 1 folder or even 1 file) and restore
>- easy to try something (either using a copy of VM or snapshot and
>ability to roll back)
>- finally i have both workstation windows and fusion on mac and i can
>just copy the virtual disk file across to "move" my current VM between
>mac/windows (ftp takes less than 5 min).

Since I'm a hobbyist I don't have multiple machines and with the current power I won't be upgrading soon so I quite like a real machine. I only have a couple of D6 apps still running and those tend to just run so its insurance really.

>I've actually given up on Acronis and switched to Drive Snapshot

Why? I've thought of changing a few times but the others don't seem any better.

Roy

>Nope.Mainly because I don't understand what people have posted about this. I can boot from an Acronis recovery disk but then how do I start VirtualBox to get the image back into it? Plus I'm running Windows and the posts I've found talk about some flavour of Linux.

OK figured out that you start the VM, stuff the CD in and then restart the VM. Great apart from the fact that Acronis Boot Disk in the VM doesn't recognise my mouse (either the built in one or the USB one). Back to banging head on wall.

>What I'm going to try today is to create a VM the size the OS needs plus the size of an Acronis image. Open it, shrink C: create a D: load the image into there and see if I can restore that.
>
>So far I can't get VirtualBox AND Acronis to see anything outside of themselves. VirtualBox doesn't see the LAN, the internet or USB drives. However, I'll be happy with a single directory so I can move stuff in and out. In fact I like the idea of isolation.

Tried this. Seemed to go well but the VM no longer boots. My head hurts

What I'm trying to do can't really be so difficult can it?

>Roy