XP VM fails to start

[descott12]

Hello,
I am migrating some windows VMs from Parallels on my Mac to a new Windows 10 machine running Virtual Box 6.1.34. My Win7 VM came over fine using a method I found online where I simply rename .hds file inside the Parallels .pvm and create a new Virtual Box VM. Works perfectly for my Win7 VM.

However for my XP VM it does not start. It will start to boot and it gets to the Windows XP logo and progress bar then I get the 0x00007B error blue screen.
Same in safe mode.

I have scoured a lot of blogs and I believe I have all the various settings checked. The one exception is "Enable Nested VT-x/AMD-V" is greyed out and unchecked. I am pretty certain that HyperV is disabled in my host OS.

A zip of the logs is attached. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: It seems this error is from a confused disk controller and I have tried many of the different types for the IDE controller but they all fail with the same error.

[mpack]

V2V migration is no easier than P2V, and XP has known problems during migrations.

See https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows, and note the stuff about MergeIDE. Leave the IDE controller chipset configured as PIIX4.

[AndyCot]

For XP another thing to check out is the hardware drivers as they do not like to startup on different hardware than they expect.

Try googling moving XP from one machine to another or replacing a motherboard as see where this takes you.

[mpack]

That is what the Migration FAQ covers.

[descott12]

Thanks all for the help. Much progress. The migration doc helped alot. I removed to two sys files and I ran MergeIDE.
Now the VM boots up to the login screen. But no mouse so I can't actually click on a user name to actually login.

The screen indicates that the VM has mouse capture but when I click in the window, the cursor disappears and it just shows a static mouse cursor in the center of the window. I am kind of stuck again.

Also, this VM is SO slow. In Parallels, it starts up in 5 seconds or so. In VB, it churns for up to 5 minutes. I have VT-X/AMD-V, Nested paging, PAE/NX, and Hyper-V paravirtualization selected. Any ideas?

Again thanks alot. I feel like I am close.

[mpack]

But no mouse so I can't actually click on a user name to actually login.

That is not unusual in a V2V project. It means that you have the Parallels Guest Tools installed (I have no idea what Parallels calls these btw), and their version of mouse integration certainly won't work in VirtualBox. So boot XP up in safe mode and uninstall the Parallels Guest Tools. You might as well install the VirtualBox Guest Additions at the same time.

The VM is slow because you have Hyper-v enabled on the host.

00:00:02.645055 HM: HMR3Init: Attempting fall back to NEM: VT-x is not available
00:00:02.681742 NEM: info: Found optional import WinHvPlatform.dll!WHvQueryGpaRangeDirtyBitmap.
00:00:02.681799 NEM: WHvCapabilityCodeHypervisorPresent is TRUE, so this might work...

See HMR3Init: Attempting fall back to NEM (Hyper-V is active).

[descott12]

Thanks again for the reply.

1) I did uninstall Parallel's tools. Booting into safe mode results in the same issue with no mouse so I can't log in.
2) I have gone thru the instructions in your link to disable Hyper-V, actually more than once. I unchecked all features and ran the command as Admin. No errors from typing incorrectly. Oddly, my Win7 VM works fine and its log has the same message about fallback to NEM but it works fine - very fast.

Edit: I just checked and my Win7 VM is showing the turtle icon as well and nothing I tried will make it get out of "slow mode" although it does seem to be performing pretty well as it is. "Enable Nested VT-x/AMD-V" checkbox is greyed out.

[fth0]

@descott12:
Regarding Device Guard, have you disabled Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Device security > Core isolation > Memory integrity on your Windows host, followed by a reboot of the Windows host?

@mpack:
Re: I have a 64bit host, but can't install 64bit guests contains only an older path to this setting in point 3 that you may want to update. Currently this setting is indirectly covered by the settings mentioned in point 2. Perhaps it makes sense to integrate point 3 into point 2, because HVCI (Memory Integrity) is the only part of Device Guard directly visible in the Windows settings. Let me know if you have questions how this all works together.

[descott12]

@descott12:
Regarding Device Guard, have you disabled Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Device security > Core isolation > Memory integrity on your Windows host, followed by a reboot of the Windows host?

That did it!!! Both VM's are super fast and no more turtle icon in either! Thank you very much for the tip!

Now if I can solve my mouse problem with my XP VM, I should be all set. Not sure if agp440.sys is part of the problem but I cannot remove it from my XP install. It keeps coming back even when I delete from the dllcache folder. I search and there aren't any copies and if I wait a few seconds it comes right back from nowhere!! But I don't think that is an issue as the VM no longe hangs on startup

Thanks again

[descott12]

Well, my mousepad started working so I could log on. I installed Guest Additions which fixed all my mouse issues. I then fixed a problem with the network card not being recognized and then tricked it into being activated using a great tip here on the forum (copy the MAC and wpa.dbl) and now I am good to go!

Thank you all for your help.
Cheers

[mpack]

Not sure if agp440.sys is part of the problem but I cannot remove it from my XP install. It keeps coming back even when I delete from the dllcache folder.

What did you try other than "even when I delete"? If you delete the device in Device Manager (look in "Other Devices" I guess) then I wouldn't expect it to come back, given that a VirtualBox VM doesn't have the associated hardware (the Advanced Graphics Processor).

It's a long time since I P2V'd an XP install from old hardware, but I'm pretty sure that was all I had to do, for agp440.sys and intelppm.sys.

One final thing: XP is way too old to understand that it might be running under a hypervisor, so it doesn't need access to a hypervisor API. I.e. you can change that paravirtualization setting back to Legacy.

[fth0]

I have gone thru the instructions in your link to disable Hyper-V, actually more than once. I unchecked all features and ran the command as Admin.

For the sake of completeness: Did you also modify the Windows Group Policy and/or the Windows Registry regarding DeviceGuard, according to the instructions linked by mpack, before you wrote the statements quoted above? I'm asking, because my suggestion should have been redundant in that case.

[mpack]

One final final thing. XP is not so old that it wouldn't benefit from a second CPU core (not more - 2 is usually the sweet spot).

However if XP was installed with a single CPU HAL then it won't automatically use any second core you provide, you would have to update the HAL (obviously, back up the VM first). For a discussion see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24823&start=15#p111502.

[descott12]

I have gone thru the instructions in your link to disable Hyper-V, actually more than once. I unchecked all features and ran the command as Admin.

For the sake of completeness: Did you also modify the Windows Group Policy and/or the Windows Registry regarding DeviceGuard, according to the instructions linked by mpack, before you wrote the statements quoted above? I'm asking, because my suggestion should have been redundant in that case.

I did not do that. I didn't actually see any instructions for removing them. Just a list of things that could start HyperV and the links actually go to a page that appears to have some sort of utility to install them. It seemed like the bcdedit command would fix it anyway so I just did that.... In any case, it looks good from that standpoint.
Thanks

[descott12]

One final final thing. XP is not so old that it wouldn't benefit from a second CPU core (not more - 2 is usually the sweet spot).

However if XP was installed with a single CPU HAL then it won't automatically use any second core you provide, you would have to update the HAL (obviously, back up the VM first). For a discussion see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24823&start=15#p111502.

I just switched to Legacy for paravirtualization and upped it to 2 CPU's and that seemed to help. Howerer, it is a little sluggish on a long compile and in the Session Info, the Guest Load is about 49% and the VMM load is only 9%. It seems that it could go alot faster...Is there a way to allow the VM to use more resources. Plenty of free memory.

The virtualization popup shows:
Engine: VT-x/AMD-V
Nested paging: active
Unrestricted: active
Execution cap: 100
Processors: 2