Hyper-V Import Again Fails

I ran into this Hyper-V subtlety, so I figure I’ll share it here and make it easier to find with a search. If you try to import a Hyper-V image and the import fails, you will not be able to use the same files to try the import again. Hyper-V actually deletes and alters files as part of the import process.

image

The error you’ll likely see is “Import failed. Import failed. Unable to find virtual machine import files under location … You can import a virtual machine only if you used Hyper-V to create and export it.” At face value this error is infuriating since you are trying to import a Hyper-V export, but the fact that you’re running the import for the second time means that Hyper-V does not consider your source to be valid.

The lesson here is don’t try and import your exported Hyper-V image without first making a backup copy. If you have a backup, you can just copy over the small files again and not have to export or copy the large image files a second time.