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[Solved] Virtual Hard Disk: .vdi file not recognized

Posted: 28. Dec 2018, 12:02
by paulchany
Hi,

on my Gentoo linux system I am running VirtualBox 5.2.22 version.
I want to install on this VirtualBox a Debian as a guest.
I have the installation .iso file.

So I created the virtual machine 'T2540' and configure it so it have the installation .iso file, and the virtaul .vdi file.
I can to start the installation of the guest Debian system, but the process stuck at the step when the hard drive must be detected to can begin the partition on it.
I get the message of the installation process as:
No partitionable media were found.
But at configuration of this virtual machine I have the .vdi file attached as a SATA disk.
So what can do to solve this problem?

Re: Virtual Hard Disk: .vdi file not recognized

Posted: 28. Dec 2018, 12:10
by andyp73
Post the VBox.log file (zipped) from the guest you have created and we can check that the disk is correctly defined and attached to the guest.

BTW - which version of Debian are you trying to install as a guest?

-Andy.

Re: Virtual Hard Disk: .vdi file not recognized

Posted: 28. Dec 2018, 12:20
by paulchany
I am trying to install the Debian Sarge with the debian-31r0-i386-netinst.iso file out there.

Re: Virtual Hard Disk: .vdi file not recognized

Posted: 28. Dec 2018, 12:39
by andyp73
The log file seems to show that the virtual BIOS has detected the disk attached to SATA port #0 so we might need to get one of the experts to take a closer look at it.

It probably won't solve your immediate problem but the guest configuration of 128MB RAM and 16MB Video RAM won't be enough. The default RAM for Debian in the templates is 1GB so I would change it back to that and set the Video RAM to 64MB or 128MB.

-Andy.

Re: Virtual Hard Disk: .vdi file not recognized

Posted: 28. Dec 2018, 13:55
by paulchany
I configure the guest Debian system as you adviced, namely the RAM is 1024MB, and the Video RAM is 128MB now.
With this setup I tried again to install Debian Sarge with 'linux26' boot command ( as I did in all previous cases here - though, I tried it differently too, with just by hit the Enter at the installation boot prompt ) but the error remain the same: the virtual hdd was not recognized.

Re: Virtual Hard Disk: .vdi file not recognized

Posted: 28. Dec 2018, 19:43
by andyp73
Apologies, this was me being dim! For some reason I thought Sarge was the latest testing version of Debian not it being Debian v3.1!

The kernel in Sarge will be too old to understand a disk connected to a SATA interface. In the guest configuration, remove the .vdi file from the SATA interface and instead attach it to an IDE controller. If you don't know how, it is detailed in the user manual.

You may also find that the standard Debian templates aren't right for such an old kernel and you may need to change it to the "Linux 2.4 32bit" template.

-Andy.

Re: Virtual Hard Disk: .vdi file not recognized

Posted: 29. Dec 2018, 10:10
by paulchany
Success here!
I did as you adviced:
attach the .vdi to the IDE controller instead of SATA controller.
Change the template from Debian 32bit to the Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x (32-bit).
Now the Debian Sarge installer .iso works fine.
The hard drive is recognized.
Here I learned that, that we must to configure the virtual machine for the guest operating system, regarding the hardware and the kernel.
Thank you very much for help!

Re: Virtual Hard Disk: .vdi file not recognized

Posted: 30. Dec 2018, 00:01
by socratis
+1 VirtualBeer for Andy! :)
Marking as [Solved].