Contents of zip extracted (using Win7 default right-click 'extract all' and copied) to C:\Users\Jed\VirtualBox VMs\TKL LAMP\ (ie vHDD is C:\Users\Jed\VirtualBox VMs\turnkey-lamp-12.0-squeeze-x86-vmdk\turnkey-lamp-12.0-squeeze-x86.vmdk)
Used the VBox 'New' VM wizard to create a new VM:
Set the OS to Linux > Debian
Selected 'use existing vHDD' - browsed to the extracted disk image (path as above)
Accepted all other defaults
Once completed, set networking to 'Bridged'
Started new VM
Input all firstboot info (skipped TKLBAM setup and security updates)
Set a static IP from ConfConsole and manually configured my DNS (I need to fix my DHCP server as it is giving the wrong DNS info...)
Exited out of ConfConsole
Ran apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
Created a test file in /root (touch testfile)
Took a snapshot (in case I experienced same as you - I intend to use this server for some other testing)
Shutdown VM (halt)
Started VM again (from VBox UI)
Confirmed that everything is as it should be (confconsole still had my static network settings there and ls showed that testfile was there)
Other than confirming your experience of VBox 'send the shutdown signal' not working and it being quite slow (I'm used to running OVZ containers on my Promox server) it all seemed to go well and acted as I would have expected it to.
So I'm not really sure what is happening for you. To double and triple check I started and stopped it multiple times creating testfiles as i went and they were all there...
Working for me!
I just thought I'd test this out for myself and see if I could reproduce your issue, but I can't.
Here's some info about my setup and the steps I followed so we can perhaps see where the differences are:
Other than confirming your experience of VBox 'send the shutdown signal' not working and it being quite slow (I'm used to running OVZ containers on my Promox server) it all seemed to go well and acted as I would have expected it to.
So I'm not really sure what is happening for you. To double and triple check I started and stopped it multiple times creating testfiles as i went and they were all there...