Cannot use ISO image with VirtualBox 3.1.0

[prawlings]

@PerryG It was a 3.1.0 fresh install. I installed to two separate machines, both see the same problem. One of the servers, I've downgraded to 3.0.8 and have since seen no further problems.

Whenever I attempt to add an ISO, I recieve the error message. So it never actually displays the ISO path. I can browse to the location of the ISO files, but up choosing the ISO file and selecting 'OK', I get the error message I posted previously.

[Perryg]

The storage portion of VirtualBox has changed a lot.
Since this is totally reproducible for you I would post a ticket in bugtracker (link is below my post) and let the DEVs sort this out.
It may be something really simple to solve but you have already tried everything I would myself. Well I might try setting the CD/DVD to sata as a last resort.
Other that that I would not know what to tell you to do. I do not have Windows 2008 as host on any of my systems.

[prawlings]

Sounds good. Thanks for your effort.

[mpack]

@prawlings: do you have any other software installed on the same hosts that understands ISOs? I'm thinking of something like a driver that can mount ISOs as virtual CDs on the host. If it isn't a user privilege issue then perhaps a sharing violation?

[faz]

I have the same problem here with VB 3.1.2 .
No problem with 3.0.x and no problem with vmware Fusion.
My ISO images have been created using OS X Disk Utility by renaming the files to .ISO.

Did you find any solution to the issue?

[prawlings]

I eventually got it to work with 3.1.0 and now 3.1.2. As mpack surmised there was a conflict with another piece of software.

In my case it was with a piece of software I was testing and required a fix from the developer in order to get it to work. It appears there was a change between 3.0 and 3.1 in the response VirtualBox was looking for when an ISO was opened that caused the error.

[faz]

May be I have found the cause: it seems a matter of OS X extended attributes applied to ISO file.

Unfortunately I didn't find a way to remove such attributes but I see that iso are working if there is no extended attribute on it "@"

[faz]

mmh... it seems I was wrong, I have found a way to remove extended attributes to my ISO images but they are not working as before.

So I go back and tried to create again my ISO images using OS X's Disk Utility: I have selected my CD-ROM from the left list, I have clicked on "Create Image", selected CD/DVD (not crypted, not compressed) and started the job.
Once finished I have quit Disk Utility and renamed the file from .cdr to .iso.
Now the iso image is working fine. I see that my previous iso was smaller in size.

[heratech]

Just want to say that I have just installed 3.1.2 on Ubuntu x64 9.10 and have the same issue. I also converted my iso using nrg2iso if that means anything. The iso was XP pro sp3.
worked in vmware.

[shoot-me]

likewise started up Virtualbox after the Christmas break installed 3.1.2, running Ubuntu 9.04 (32bit)
Then it complained about my ISOs of Windows XP discs.

http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/5752
http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/5680

Both ISOs I created from the original physical discs so I'm a little bit surprised by the comments on tick 5752 from Klaus:

"VirtualBox 3.1.0 applies a tiny bit of sanity checking even to raw images. Right now it checks whether the image size is a multiple of 512 (for ISO files it actually should check whether it is a multiple of 2048 to be accurate).

ISO files which don't pass that check have been most likely corrupted somewhere."

The ISO was ok before hand and was to use it to re-install broken features in 3.0.12 and previous releases over the past 1.5 years.
EDIT: - I've gone back to 3.0.12 for now and the ISOs are ok, after restoring a few xmls of my guest machines from my backups.

Can we have an option turn off the sanity checking ?

[ak4life]

Had the same problem on Ubuntu 8.10 with VirtualBox 3.1 (3.1.2-56127_Ubuntu_intrepid). VirtualBox 3.0 (3.0.12-54655_Ubuntu_intrepid) has no problems with that ISO image.

[tasogare]

I've had this error on a large number of isos on my own system. The common factor seems to be that all the failing ones were at some point passed through the nrg2iso conversion utility. Isos I created later, using k3b, work fine. I've no idea what version of nrg2iso it was, sadly. I assume there is some technicality of the iso format that the developers didn't account for, as suggested earlier in this thread. I can probably provide an offending image, if it's still necessary. I suppose it may not be -- this topic seems to have been dormant for several weeks.

I'm fairly sure I can solve my own issue using one of the iso editing tools mentioned upthread; I just wanted to mention the above for anyone who happens to google the error -- this page is the only meaningful hit google produces. If your images went through nrg2iso at some point in the past, suspect them.

(also, it would be nice if the sanity check was optional)
(also, a search on this very forum for verr_vd_raw_invalid_header does *not* spit out this thread for some reason. Maybe I'm using it wrong.)

[mpack]

I assume there is some technicality of the iso format that the developers didn't account for, as suggested earlier in this thread.
... (also, it would be nice if the sanity check was optional)

An ISO image should be a multiple of the 2048 byte sector size, otherwise it isn't a valid image - it has missing data, with no easy way to know if that data is important. IMHO VBox is within its rights to consider the image corrupted. This issue should really be raised with the author of nrg2iso.

[tasogare]

An ISO image should be a multiple of the 2048 byte sector size, otherwise it isn't a valid image - it has missing data, with no easy way to know if that data is important. IMHO VBox is within its rights to consider the image corrupted. This issue should really be raised with the author of nrg2iso.

I plan to, after checking to see if it's already been fixed. I'm not mentioning it here because I think VB is where the bug is, I'm mentioning it because VB is where the symptoms show up. I've used these images for years without realizing there was anything wrong with them. Sooner or later someone in my situation is going to google the same error and find that this thread is the only information available.

[PainterEnterprises]

Has there been any kind of solution (or at least progress) here at all? I found this thread while searching for answers to the same questions other posters presented here.

I make ISOs under Windows using Nero Burning ROM/Nero Express. They've always worked with xVM under Windows, no problems at all (including since 3.1.0). Since updating to 3.1.4, some ISO files work and some don't. All my CD-sized (<=700MB) ISOs work just fine, but all my DVD-sized (>700MB<4GB) ISOs don't. This includes Windows XP Home and Pro, Vista 32 and 64 bit, Office, etc. This includes CloneZilla.

Most recently I downloaded the ISO for BackTrack 4 Final Release from http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/. xVM won't load this ISO either.

I did reinstall (repair) my xVM 3.1.4 installation. No joy. I did uninstall, re-download, and re-install xVM 3.1.4. No joy. I did re-download the BackTrack 4 Final ISO. No joy.

I did download, run, and re-save a new image from ISOMaster - the ISOMaster output ISO seems to work (xVM will load it into virtual media - I haven't actually had the chance to try to install Windows or boot from BackTrack in a virtual machine yet).

The ISOMaster I was able to find is a commercial product with a 10 day trial period followed by a demand for cash payment. This is not a reasonable solution to a free-for-personal-use software glitch (like xVM's inability to handle larger ISOs). Edit: I posted this last bit in response to the last post from the first page of this thread - I didn't notice that there were 4 more pages! Still, looks like a much more xVM-centric issue than anything legitimately involving file corruption or ISO metadata.