This took a while to solve, its not exactly user-friendly.  I have a FreeBSD server running VirtualBox virtual machines in headless mode, and I need to do everything using VBoxManage command line. (CLI)  In one case I wanted to remove the attached DVD ISO image from my machine. They don’t have a “storagedetach” or “removehd” command, you have to use the “storageattach” command, with some extra info.

List the VM info to see the port and device attached.
VBoxManage showvminfo vmMaridia
(My VM name is vmMaridia)

You will see stuff like so:

Storage Controller Name (0): maridiasata
Storage Controller Type (0): IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 30
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 30
Storage Controller Name (1): maridiaide
Storage Controller Type (1): PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1): 2
Storage Controller Port Count (1): 2
maridiasata (0, 0): /vm/sys/maridia/mir1.vdi (UUID: fd813be8-dd38-4784-a374-d96263aae1ba)
maridiasata (1, 0): /vm/sys/maridia/mir2.vdi (UUID: dab57578-4de5-4bef-91ee-232c56eea671)
maridiasata (3, 0): /vm/sys/maridia/mardia-bu.vdi (UUID: 6ac3c6aa-ae5b-4d57-8f30-24e59d2ef381)
maridiasata (4, 0): /vm/sys/maridia/share-sata.vdi (UUID: d16a4847-95fb-43bd-b8b4-c7d9e38d9946)
maridiaide (0, 0): /vm/iso/sysresc156.iso (UUID: 10cbebd7-e058-4c8e-9487-52e7776d9935)


So, in my system, I wanted to remove from maridiaide controller, the port 0, device 0. Which is the sysresc156.iso.
To remove the DVD:

VBoxManage storageattach vmMaridia --storagectl maridiaide --port 0 --device 0 --medium none


The trick was, you just specify “none” as the medium when you want to remove it. Now when you run “showvminfo” on that VM, you’ll see no drive attached, in fact no maridiaide controller listed. (although, I do think it is registered still?)

I’ve moved a few virtual machines off of both ESXi and VMWare Server recently. (was testing VMWare, which I do like.) I moved them into VirtualBox while I test OpenSolaris, which I am REALLY liking… but off topic. Anyway, once I got the vmdk hard drive files copied, I created a new machine config in VirtualBox and added the vmdk to VirtualBox. (which is very cool I must say, you can use vmdk’s or vhd’s in VirtualBox.) Once the OS booted, in both XP Pro and Win2008, the performance was terrible and had no network. I realized that the VMWare Tools were probably still installed. Should have removed them first, but whatever. When to control panel and tied to uninstall, but I got some error that “No VmWare products were detected”, great! That’s nice, you can’t even uninstall after they are moved off the VMWare host services.

I added the VMWare Tools ISO to that VM and opened a command prompt. Then I found the “setup.exe” or “setup64.exe” files on the cd. Run those in the cmd window with a /c switch. (example:  ”setup64.exe /c” )  This will remove the Tools.  I installed the VirtualBox additions and then reboot.  On my Windows 2008 server it crashed on first reboot, then then I tried again and it loaded up just fine.  Network works and everything! Yay!

EDIT 7/23/09 :

I noticed on one Win2k system that the VMWare uninstall didn’t fully remove the networking drivers.  When I rebooted, the system tried to install the AMD PCNet adapter again, only it said it was “VMWare  …”   What I did to fix that…  I shutdown the Guest OS, went to settings and under Networking I selected the Intel adapter instead of the AMD.  This worked, but also required that I download the driver from Intel and install it manually on the Guest OS.  Everything worked fine though, and I had Gigabit networking!

I’d still like to know how to get rid of ALL the VMWare stuff though.  Probaby just need to find some INF’s for something in Windows.

When you run mstsc.exe, the Remote Desktop Connection client to connect to a virtual machine VRDP or other RDP connections, it’s not exactly clear how to enter the CTL+ALT+DEL keystroke to login. Do this:

CTL+ALT+END

:)