Installing HP Win 7 in VirtualBox

[adamretter]

Hi there,

I have read this post with interest. I have a HP Windows 7 machine, and I would like to replace Windows with CentOS and install Windows into VirtualBox. The only provided DVDs I have for Windows 7 came from HP with the machine, if I try and install a VM from these I get an error that the machine is not supported by HP and the installation is not allowed to continue.

I wondered if the approach in this thread would allow me to work around the issues. So far I have done the following -

Using a CentOS live CD -

$ dd if=/sys/firmware/acpi/tables/SLIC of=SLIC.bin
$ dmidecode > ~/dmidecode.txt

On the Windows Host PC (where I want to install a Windows Guest VM before I replace the Host OS with Linux) -

VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/acpi/0/Config/CustomTable" "E:\aretter.WEB\VirtualBox VMs\SLIC.bin"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBoardProduct" "string:1495"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBoardVendor" "Hewlett-Packard"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemProduct" "HP Compaq 8200 Elite MT PC"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemVendor" "Hewlett-Packard"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSVendor" "Hewlett-Packard"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSVersion" "J01 v02.15"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSReleaseDate" "11/10/2011"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemSerial" "CZC2252DP9"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemVersion" "Not Specified"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemUuid" "BFD1A000-B2B0-11E1-0000-80C16EF7975A"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemFamily" "103C_53307F G=D"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBoardSerial" "CZC2252DP9"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBoardVersion" "Not Specified"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBoardAssetTag" "CZC2252DP9"
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 7 (x64)" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBoardLocInChass" "Not Specified"

However If I then launch VirtualBox and attempt the install from the HP Win7 DVDs I get the same error as before, i.e. the DVDs do not detect the VM as a valid HP computer. Any idea? Should this work?
I am using VirtualBox 4.2.10

[mpack]

I too have a HP PC, and I too received a bundled OS that I didn't want to use (in my case Vista was bundled, but I wanted to continue with my XP retail). I too decided - for fun - to use the bundled CD's in a VM. I too got an error message.

However, in my case I was prompted to insert another of the HP CDs as confirmation. I gave it a look at an ISO - rejected. I gave it a look at the actual CD in the host drive - rejected. I then enabled CD "Passthrough" in the VM settings - now the CD was accepted and I could continue to install Vista (which I've never used since, oh well).

ps. I have split your question off into its own topic. Please do not tack off topic questions onto someone else's posts.