[SOLVED] Attach one virtual disk from backup of another VM

[harold.thomas]

Hello everyone,

I have a VM with ID 200, which contains two virtual disks and is already backed up. I also have another VM, ID 300, which currently has only one disk. What I’d like to do is take just one of the disks from VM 200’s backup and attach it as a second disk to VM 300.

Is there a way to achieve this directly from the backup, or would I need to take a different approach?

Thank you in advance for any advice!

- Harold

 

[pcarone]

Yes, this is possible, though it may require a few steps depending on your storage setup and whether both VMs are on the same node. One method would be:

1. Restore VM 200 under a temporary new VM ID (for example, 800).
2. Locate the disk you want and rename it according to the correct naming convention (e.g., vm-800-disk-1 → vm-300-disk-2).
3. Run qm rescan so that Proxmox detects the change.
4. Destroy the temporary VM 800.
5. The disk will then show up as an unused disk under VM 300, and you can simply attach it from the Hardware tab.

If the source and target VMs are on different nodes, you can also create a dummy VM, reassign the disk to it, migrate that VM to the destination node, and then reassign the disk again to VM 300.


This way, you’ll avoid restoring the whole VM just to get a single disk.