Table of Contents

About

When you want to start a virutalbox machine, you get an error message that say that hard disk are inaccessible.

The problem

Virtual box uses a hash key to determine uniquely an hard disk. This hash key doesn't match with the key saved in the XML metadata repository.

Virtual Box Inaccessible

The solution

Get the UUID of the hard disk from the Virtual Media Manager as shown above and replace it in the file with a vbox extension. 

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!--
** DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE.
** If you make changes to this file while any VirtualBox related application
** is running, your changes will be overwritten later, without taking effect.
** Use VBoxManage or the VirtualBox Manager GUI to make changes.
-->
<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.innotek.de/VirtualBox-settings" version="1.12-windows">
  <Machine uuid="{a52172d2-e964-42c0-824c-4d07bb2665be}" name="DatabaseDev" OSType="Linux" snapshotFolder="Snapshots"
   lastStateChange="2012-06-30T09:18:37Z">
    <Description>pwd: oracle/oracle</Description>
    <MediaRegistry>
      <HardDisks>
        <HardDisk uuid="{34830ef6-66ea-4a9f-bd69-c715bd84efb9}" location="DatabaseDev-disk1.vmdk" format="VMDK" type="Normal"/>
        <HardDisk uuid="{dd106a9c-d5ce-4f79-9ff1-26f29e1fde59}" location="DatabaseDev-disk2.vmdk" format="VMDK" type="Normal"/>
      </HardDisks>
      ...............
  </Machine>
</VirtualBox>

The UUID of this XML section must be changed. 

<HardDisks>
    <HardDisk uuid="{e068a0cb-a68c-4a09-a433-ead4b05f2bad}" location="DatabaseDev-disk1.vmdk" format="VMDK" type="Normal"/>
    <HardDisk uuid="{dd106a9c-d5ce-4f79-9ff1-26f29e1fde59}" location="DatabaseDev-disk2.vmdk" format="VMDK" type="Normal"/>
</HardDisks>

If it doesn't work, use the VirtualBox manager to delete your machine (without the file) and recreate it.