FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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Hamish
Posts: 4
Joined: 8. Apr 2021, 00:53

FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Post by Hamish »

I have installed Virtual box and created Windows 10 partition, but it never gave me the option of installing Windows 10.
Now when I
“Select Windows 10 in the Virtual Machine manager then click Start” I just get "FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!"
How can I install Windows 10 in that VirtualBox partition?

I have Windows 10 and I have the code.
BillG
Volunteer
Posts: 5100
Joined: 19. Sep 2009, 04:44
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Post by BillG »

You say that you have Windows 10. Where? in what form?

If you have the .iso file and that file is on your host machine, assign the .iso file to the optical drive of the vm. Then when you start the vm it will boot into the Windows installer.

If you have it on a DVD, put the DVD in the host's drive and tell the guest to use the host's drive. You do this by going to the Settings of the vm, select Storage and click on the optical drive (which is probably showing Empty). Now click on the blue disk at the right side of the display and select Host Drive from the dropdown list. This is the same place as you would use to assign the .iso file to the optical drive. In that case you would select Choose a disk file.
Optical.PNG
Bill
Hamish
Posts: 4
Joined: 8. Apr 2021, 00:53

Re: FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Post by Hamish »

Dear BillG
I downloaded Windows 10 from the Windows web site and so have it on my computer.

Thank you very much for your suggestion.

However I do not have a DVD player on my computer. So I am suspecting that means I don’t have an optical drive.
I do see the blue disk like icon and it does say “Empty”. So I selected that.

You say "Now click on the blue disk at the right side of the display and select Host Drive from the dropdown list. "
But when I do that I do not get "Host Drive" in the dropdown menu. I get "Choose/Create a Virtual Optical Disk" and "Choose a disk file".

I tried both, but was not clear what they were going to do. I do not have a “disk file” that I am aware of, unless that is referring to something on my hard drive. When I tried "Choose a disk file" I could navigate to where I had the Microsoft ISO file on my computer, but it didn’t say anywhere that this was how to install a Windows operating system on your vm, or anything remotely like that; so I am concerned that it would do something completely different and screw up the whole thing.

Should I go with "Choose a disk file"? If so can I select “Open” when I select the Windows ISO file and I will get the usual sequence of screens for installing Windows?

Thank you very much for you help
Hamish
Hamish
Posts: 4
Joined: 8. Apr 2021, 00:53

Re: FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Post by Hamish »

PS
I should have added that if instead of selecting the blue disk like icon I select Windows 10.vid. Then click on the “blue disk at the right side” I also get "Choose/Create a Virtual Optical Disk" and "Choose a disk file" and it looks like I can also “navigate to where I had the Microsoft ISO file on my computer” with both of those.

Just intuitively it seems like that might have a better chance of getting Windows 10 into that VM, but again I have no idea if it would do something completely different and screw up the whole thing.

Thank you very much
Hamish
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Post by scottgus1 »

Hamish wrote:I do not have a DVD player on my computer.
That will mean that setting to "Host Drive" will not work for you, since you don't have a "Host Drive" to set to.
Hamish wrote:I downloaded Windows 10 from the Windows web site and so have it on my computer.
If this is an ISO file, you can set the VM's CD drive to load the ISO via "Choose a disk file".
Hamish wrote:When I tried "Choose a disk file" I could navigate to where I had the Microsoft ISO file on my computer, but it didn’t say anywhere that this was how to install a Windows operating system on your vm, or anything remotely like that
That is how you do it.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Post by mpack »

Hamish wrote:but it didn’t say anywhere that this was how to install a Windows operating system on your vm
I'm pretty sure that it says precisely that in the user manual.
If you have downloaded installation media from the Internet in the form of an ISO image file such as with a Linux distribution, you would normally burn this file to an empty CD or DVD and proceed as described above. With Oracle VM VirtualBox however, you can skip this step and mount the ISO file directly. Oracle VM VirtualBox will then present this file as a CD or DVD-ROM drive to the virtual machine, much like it does with virtual hard disk images.
This is just a small extract - the rest of that chapter covers the subject comprehensively.
Hamish
Posts: 4
Joined: 8. Apr 2021, 00:53

Re: FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Post by Hamish »

Thank you very much

Sorry for the delay in responding I got very busy for a few days. But it worked!

Following your advice I:
Opened VirtualBox
Selected the Windows 10 Virtual Machine I had already created
Selected “Settings”
Selected “Empty”
Selected “the blue disk at the right side of the display”
Selected "Choose a disk file".
Choose the folder on my computer where I had downloaded the Windows 10 operating system and selected Win10_20H2_v2_English_x64.iso
I then followed the Microsoft instructions for installing that

To my surprise the whole thing did not burst into flames and I now have Windows 10 operating in VirtualBox and have installed the main program I use there

Thank you very much
Hamish
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: FATAL: No bootable media found. System halted!

Post by scottgus1 »

Great! Glad you're up and running.
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