HyperV Export failed Cannot find the file specified 0x80070003

shijith 41

Hi,

Exporting Hyper V VM from Hyper V manager failed with the following error.

Export failed for virtual machine 'XXXXX' (GUID)with error 'The system cannot find the path specified.' (0x80070003).
How to identify which file is missing and how to solve this issue.
This is windows 2016 server and the VM have multiple snapshots.

Regards
Shijith

cb27 21 Reputation points

2022-01-14T23:31:54.87+00:00

I ran into this problem when trying to export a VM from Hyper-V. The answer is simple. Read on.

Initially I gave up and ended up copying the VM files and virtual disk folders in order to "back up" the VM. This didn't work when I tried using the VM on another machine. I can't remember the exact issues I ran into, but it was a ball ache not worth repeating.

Then, many months later, I tried exporting again. Same error msg.
Then I tried something different.

Up til now, I had been right clicking on the VM in the Virtual Machines list (the upper pane in the Hyper-V window and then clicking export. This always threw the Export failed, missing file blaa blaa error msg.

Then I had the brain wave to export the Checkpoint instead.
So I picked a Checkpoint to export. It exported ok. Yay.

I then copied the exported files to another machine and tried importing into Hyper-V.
The import wizard caught the issues like the new machine only had one nic whereas the original had two so wanted to know how to map the Virtual switches etc. These problems are fine and expected.

So I will be re-attempting the import on a machine with the requisite hardware. I'm not expecting any insurmountable problems. Haha, famous last words, I wasn't expecting any issues exporting either. But here we are.

I just thought I'd put this out there as I wish I'd come across a pointer like this when I ran into the export problem myself months ago. Especially when the answer is so simple.
Julius Mensing 1 Reputation point

2022-05-29T16:34:56.233+00:00

This happened to me when exporting to an external harddrive that was formatted with FAT32 -> File size limitation...
When exporting to another one with NTFS it all worked fine.
Jason Barkley 0 Reputation points

2024-02-10T23:54:18.75+00:00

If all else fails and you're desperate, you can try deleting all of your Checkpoints. It worked for me.

2 answers

Xiaowei He 9,871 Reputation points

2020-12-29T05:56:52.287+00:00

Hi，

Please check if the Hyper V snapshots avhdx files has the good link with the parent disk.

Thanks for your time!
Best Regards,
Anne

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shijith 41 Reputation points

2020-12-29T06:50:00.427+00:00

Hi,

Thanks Xiaowei He for the quick reply.
Inspect disc works fine. And VM starts and runs without any issues.
Only haves issues in exporting.

Please Note that the VM have multiple check points.

Also checked event viewer log and there is also only have the same message.
How to identify which path is missing while exporting.
Regards
Shijith

shijith 41 Reputation points

2020-12-29T06:52:33.677+00:00

We checked the snapshot path in settings which is correct. How to check the files for each snapshot checkpoint. Is it possible to do inspect on the check points.

Xiaowei He 9,871 Reputation points

2021-01-04T08:39:38.747+00:00

Hi,

Please also check the vhd file location of the VM, check if the file exists in the correct location in file explorer:

Best Regards,
Anne
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szveisti 0 Reputation points

2024-03-15T10:53:25.1933333+00:00

export error: the system cannot "read" the file.

The system did not have permission at the save location!

On the Security tab, select "system" with full access to access the saved file!
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