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Somehow a lot of things went wrong with VirtualBox. The configuration-file (which is an xml-file) was cleared, because there was most probably no space left on the disk.

The harddisk file was lost in the first place, but I have found a copy. One of the snapshots contains all important changes (and thus files). While trying a lot of stuff to fix the errors (including editing the configuration file) there were all kinds of error messages.

My question: Is there a way to restore the configuration file (or get (copy) the files that were added / changed in a snapshot)?

thanks in advance!

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Just to make it clear, you have the hard disk file, and it's snapshots? Only thing missing is the configuration file (xml)? In that case question title should be something like: "how to restore deleted VirtualBox configuration file?" – bbaja42 Jun 9 '11 at 19:42
Yes thanks. Although "getting the files of the snapshot" is actually what I want, but one thing leads to another. – Joschua Jun 10 '11 at 13:10
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Virtualbox has tool that creates xml configuration file, maybe give it a try creatvm.

EDIT: this is an answer to question if it's possible to retrieve files from just snapshots, without hard disk file. In short: Impossible.

Longer explanation: Every snapshot is difference between previous snapshot and current state. In case of first snapshot, it is difference between current state and state of hard disk. Since you have only differences left, it is impossible to get back data without original hard disk.

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thanks, what if the files were non-existant on the hard disk and were created afterwards and then saved in the snapshot? – Joschua Jun 7 '11 at 13:33
Not sure, but I doubt that you can retrieve it. It would require low level tool that could parse virtualbox snapshots. I am not aware that such tool exists. – bbaja42 Jun 7 '11 at 16:32
Okay. What if I can recover the hard disk file, but my configuration file is corrupt or empty? (Should I open another question for this?) – Joschua Jun 7 '11 at 22:56
Include it in this question, and maybe change the title. If you can get hard disk files, it should be quite possible to create the configuration file by copying some other Vbox configuration, and changing hard disk uuid. – bbaja42 Jun 8 '11 at 6:18
I changed my question according to the latest "events". – Joschua Jun 9 '11 at 19:33
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