Windows 2000 server

[vladuna]

I use setting as offered by VB when specifying guest OS.
RAM 512 to 2GB, HD 2/4 GB vmdk, video VBoxVGA 18 MB, net bridged to wireless PCnet-FAST III

Installation:
- disk formated
- starting up
- setup wizard
- detecting and instaling devices
- ...
- workgroup/domain
- copying files

Then the machine restarts and starts at the
- setup wizard
again.
Even if going through setup again, I get to the same point again

I tried different guest settings but even VB seems to be foolproof, warning of wrong settings.
I even tried two other ISOs but with the completely same result.

Am I doing anything wrong way?

[scottgus1]

I'm going to surmise that this:

- workgroup/domain
- copying files

is part of the setup routine, not manual setup after you've completed the OS installation. Windows installs will reset to the beginning of the installation if the process crashes before completion. But I've never heard of a fully-installed OS going back into Setup on crash or reboot, unless the install CD is still inserted in the drive and the user "presses any key to boot from CD...".

If the host is a Windows 10 or 11 host this could be Hyper-V on the host getting in the way.

Right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list, choose Show Log.

Search the far left tab's log for this text:

Attempting fall back to NEM

If you find it, Hyper-V is enabled. See HMR3Init: Attempting fall back to NEM (Hyper-V is active).

If you don't find that text, save the far left tab's log, zip the log file, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.