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Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 1. Dec 2009, 12:20
by StefanP
I have a problem using an ISO image with VBox 3.1.0 that has worked with previous versions (3.0.12) of VirtualBox.

Code: Select all

VBoxManage openmedium dvd XP-SP2.iso 
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.1.0
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

ERROR: Could not open the medium '/data/XP-SP2.iso'.
VD: error VERR_VD_RAW_INVALID_HEADER opening image file '/data/XP-SP2.iso' (VERR_VD_RAW_INVALID_HEADER)
Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component Medium, interface IMedium, callee nsISupports
Context: "OpenDVDImage(Bstr(szFilenameAbs), ImageIdStr, dvdImage.asOutParam())" at line 1442 of file VBoxManageDisk.cpp

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 1. Dec 2009, 12:34
by Sasquatch
I'm having no problems with attaching ISO files, so I think the image is bad and an additional check for that is now in place, or something happened to it like file corruption.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 1. Dec 2009, 12:51
by StefanP
I've checksummed the ISO image und compared it with copies of the image on other machines. This image works fine in VMware, KVM/QEMU. I've been using this image since the release of VirtualBox 2.0 and I never had any problems.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 1. Dec 2009, 18:21
by SSCBrian
Are you able to mount other ISO images OK?

So far, I've not had any issues with ISOs on 3.1.0.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 1. Dec 2009, 18:57
by mpack
SSCBrian wrote:So far, I've not had any issues with ISOs on 3.1.0.
Likewise, and I've been using them a lot, all through the beta phase. And of course the guest additions come packaged as an ISO.

I agree with Sasquatch: most likely there is a incorrect field in the ISO header, and this new version of VBox detects it.

@stefanp: if for some reason you can't or don't want to download a replacement for this ISO, then perhaps you could repair the situation by using an ISO-tool to unpack and then repack this ISO, assuming of course that this tool is more forgiving than VBox.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 1. Dec 2009, 19:49
by mauritzius
Same problem for me. The image has been working fine in VirtualBox 3.0.10.
However, this image was converted from .nrg to .iso using nrg2iso, maybe this is the problem?

Edit: Just opened and resaved the image in isomaster, filesize reduced by about 15MB, but it is now working as it should!

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 2. Dec 2009, 00:26
by StefanP
Thanks for the hint to the isomaster tool. I opened the ISO image and saved it again. Now the image works! :D

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 8. Dec 2009, 22:08
by prawlings
I've run into the same problem on Windows in that I'm unable to open ISO image files with VirtualBox 3.1.0. I have seen this on two different installs and one of my colleages has seen the same issue on his 3.1.0 installs. In all cases, the same ISO images work fine with earlier versions of VirtualBox. I haven't tried using ISO Master but just wanted to show that there may be a potential problem for some people using 3.1.0. that is not related to corrupt image files.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 8. Dec 2009, 22:41
by mpack
prawlings wrote:is not related to corrupt image files.
How do you know? Have you run a strict format check on all of those ISO images, or identified a legal feature which VBox rejects? The fact that some programs (including older versions of VBox) don't do the same kind of validation does not prove that the ISO is ok.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 8. Dec 2009, 23:32
by grnxnm
We are also seeing this same issue with VirtualBox 3.1.0. Point the guest CD drive to an OS install .ISO file on the host (an OS install .ISO file from Microsoft whose MD5 hash verifies - so the .ISO file itself is indeed good) and VirtualBox 3.1.0 throws an error. We tested with this same ISO using VirtualBox 3.0.8 and it worked just fine.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but as far as I know, .ISO files don't contain any special .ISO-file-specific metadata (not to be confused with the metadata of the 9660/UDF/etc file system stored on the disc) as some previous users have suggested. They're just a raw sector-by-sector dump of the disc contents. I say this with a wee bit of knowledge on this subject, having written a shipping device driver which mounts .ISO files as virtual CD drives. There are other dumped-disc image formats which do have a format with their own specific metadata.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 9. Dec 2009, 00:35
by mpack
I'm not saying that the ISO images have been corrupted, I'm suggesting that they may be technically illegal - and were so before the MD5 sum was calculated. Unless we know the reason for the failure then everything here is speculation: we have no strong evidence that VBox rejects fully legal ISO images, and in fact from the small number of complaints relative to the number of users I suspect the problem is not with VBox, it's with some errant ISO-generator.

As for an ISO being a raw dump of a CD or DVD - well of course, but the ISO 9660 specification defines headers with specific ranges for legal values in the fields in those headers, likewise with various extensions built on the original standard.

About the only way to resolve this would be to get an example of a "bad" ISO into the hands of the devteam - if someone could reference an ISO that could be downloaded from somewhere then that would help a lot.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 9. Dec 2009, 07:01
by MarkCranness
I've looked at the code a while ago and saw that VirtualBox tests the filesize for an ISO (any RAW format actually) and insists that the filesize is a multiple of 512 bytes. If the filesize of your ISO files do not evenly divide by 512, that will be the source of the error.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 9. Dec 2009, 11:39
by mpack
MarkCranness wrote:I've looked at the code a while ago and saw that VirtualBox tests the filesize for an ISO (any RAW format actually) and insists that the filesize is a multiple of 512 bytes. If the filesize of your ISO files do not evenly divide by 512, that will be the source of the error.
Hmm. Except that people are claiming that this is a new problem with 3.1.0, that didn't exist for example in 3.0.12 - unless there are multiple causes in play here, which is quite possible.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 10. Dec 2009, 19:19
by prawlings
mpack wrote:
prawlings wrote:is not related to corrupt image files.
How do you know? Have you run a strict format check on all of those ISO images, or identified a legal feature which VBox rejects? The fact that some programs (including older versions of VBox) don't do the same kind of validation does not prove that the ISO is ok.
I see the same problem trying to open the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso file which I assume is entirely legal.

Re: Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

Posted: 10. Dec 2009, 19:26
by SSCBrian
mpack wrote:
MarkCranness wrote:I've looked at the code a while ago and saw that VirtualBox tests the filesize for an ISO (any RAW format actually) and insists that the filesize is a multiple of 512 bytes. If the filesize of your ISO files do not evenly divide by 512, that will be the source of the error.
Hmm. Except that people are claiming that this is a new problem with 3.1.0, that didn't exist for example in 3.0.12 - unless there are multiple causes in play here, which is quite possible.
Indeed, there do seem to be a LOT more reports of this with 3.1.0. Could just be random chance or mass panic, but more likely that something software related is going on somewhere. Interesting. Have you all tried uninstalling, re-downloading, and reinstalling VBox?