XP VM inaccessible after upgrade

[Sandi]

Scenario: upgraded from 4.2.6 to 4.3.20. The upgrade froze a couple of times eventually freezing the entire computer - I eventually worked out I had to uninstall OpenVPN and VMWare to get the upgrade to complete successfully. I also 'repaired' the upgraded VirtualBox install after it finally completed successfully, just to make sure all is ok.

All existing VMs were then opened successfully, and the Guest Additions properly upgraded. After a couple of successful shut downs and restarts I shut down the VMs, created new snapshots then deleted the older snapshots. The snapshot mergers seemed to complete properly.

Since then my XP VHD (originally a Virtual PC XPI later imported into VirtualBox) has been marked as "(Normal, Inaccessible)".

Attempts to start the VM result in the VM immediately closing with the infamous E_FAIL (0x80004005) ProgressProxy IProgress error appearing.

When I release then remove the associated "dynamically allocated differencing storage" the XP VM fails to boot with the "FATAL: Could not read from boot medium! System halted" error. If I close the VM and try to start it again I am back at the infamous E_FAIL (0x80004005) ProgressProxy IProgress error.

Creating a new VM using the existing VHD fails. Attempts to clone the VM fails.

Any and all suggestions gratefully accepted.

Machine Log:
VirtualBox VM 4.3.20 r96997 win.amd64 (Nov 24 2014 11:05:59) release log
00:00:02.153113 Log opened 2015-01-24T01:49:55.841925600Z
00:00:02.153116 Build Type: release
00:00:02.153124 OS Product: Windows 7
00:00:02.153127 OS Release: 6.1.7601
00:00:02.153130 OS Service Pack: 1
00:00:02.210416 DMI Product Name: Qosmio X770
00:00:02.213324 DMI Product Version: PSBY5A-00X01D
00:00:02.213329 Host RAM: 8168MB total, 3578MB available
00:00:02.213331 Executable: C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VirtualBox.exe
00:00:02.213332 Process ID: 6948
00:00:02.213333 Package type: WINDOWS_64BITS_GENERIC
00:00:02.217384 Installed Extension Packs:
00:00:02.217412 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (Version: 4.3.20 r96996; VRDE Module: VBoxVRDP)
00:00:02.254735 UIMediumEnumerator: Medium-enumeration finished!
00:00:02.270149 Power up failed (vrc=VINF_SUCCESS, rc=E_FAIL (0X80004005))
00:00:02.687509 UIMachineView::storeGuestSizeHint: Storing guest size-hint for screen 0 as 640x480

[mpack]

Basically, if you have been inexpertly messing with a difference chain then the outlook may not be good - especially if you deleted any element of it as you seem to be describing, could mean that the VM is gone.

A partial VM log is no good to use. We normally ask you to zip up the complete log and attach it. However in this case a log will not tell us what tampering has been going on with the VM. If you want to tamper, don't use snapshots!

And I assume you made no backups? You just went ahead and deleted files.

All you can do is this. First, find every related VDI file you can - meaning the base VDI and snapshot VDIs, and copy them all into one folder. Download CloneVDI and see which of the VDIs it will let you clone. Ideally it will let you clone the newest snapshot VDI. At worst it should let you clone the base VDI, provided it exists. If it lets you clone anything then the result will be a merged VDI which you can build a new VM around.

[frank]

Right, please add the complete VBox.log file and also the VBoxSVC.log file.

[Sandi]

Thanks for the responses - much appreciated.

Here are the log files, plus a couple of screenshots that may be helpful. The VHD for the VM definitely still exists, all 22.9 GIG of it.

I'm inclined to think that the problems with this VM are somehow related to the fact that it was originally a Virtual PC VM that was moved over to VirtualBox (note it's a VHD instead of VDI).

Re backups, I've already tried that too. The virtual machines are backed up to my Windows Home Server daily, however I'm having some issues with the backups that I haven't been able to work out yet. Every time I open a backup archive on my server, its contents seem to be identical to that already on my local machine.

[frank]

Your log files are not complete. The VBox.log file contains a VM session with VBox 4.3.20 where .vdi files are used. The screenshots show that the .vhd file is not accessible for some reason. I would like to see at least the settings file of your XP VM where the .vhd files are used.

[Sandi]

Hello,

I hope that the attached will be more helpful. Thank you for your assistance.

VM logs 2.zip

(123.74 KiB) Downloaded 87 times

[frank]

Sorry for the late response. "Windows XP used to be Virtual PC-2015-01-24-09-49-47.log" is a log file from a VM session which booted but no hard disks were attached. Therefore the guest will not boot (no boot medium). "Windows XP used to be Virtual PC-2015-01-24-09-49-56.log" fails booting for an unknown reason (Power up failed (vrc=VINF_SUCCESS, rc=E_FAIL). "Windows XP used to be Virtual PC-2015-01-23-16-30-08.log" is again from a successful boot without any hard disk attached. "Windows XP used to be Virtual PC-2015-01-23-16-29-10.log" again is the mysterious E_FAIL error.

Without a hard disk or bootable iso image attached your VM will not boot.

[Sandi]

Hi Frank,

My apologies for my tardiness in replying

What you're seeing doesn't surprise me. You will remember from my first plea for help that attempts to start the VM result in the VM immediately closing with the infamous E_FAIL (0x80004005) ProgressProxy IProgress error appearing. Then, if I try releasing then removing the associated "dynamically allocated differencing storage" the XP VM fails to boot with the "FATAL: Could not read from boot medium! System halted" error <-- This is probably when the "no hard disk" error is being written.

BUT, that boot medium error only occurs the once. A third attempt to start the VM goes back to the E_FAIL.

To test, I tried to start the VM four times, without deleting the differencing storage, and all four logs are now identical - 00:00:02.270149 Power up failed (vrc=VINF_SUCCESS, rc=E_FAIL (0X80004005))

The VHD is definitely still there (all 22.9 GIG of it) - see second pic.

See the alert bang in the first screenshot? I've tried re-selecting that VHD via "attributes", and the bang goes away, but only until I ok out. When I go back to storage settings the bang is back

I'm stumped.

2015-04-03_13-48-40.png (79.23 KiB) Viewed 3670 times

[mpack]

Your first post says "a Virtual PC XP I imported into VirtualBox". How exactly did you do the "import"? - because the latter screenshot is clearly not the folder of a VirtualBox VM. It shows an apparantly unmodified VirtualPC folder, in a folder location not typically used by VirtualBox. I see a VHD there, but I see no reference to it in the log file - however on that final point I confess that I try as much as possible to avoid all use of difference images so I'm not familiar with how the difference chain should manifest in a log file.

[Sandi]

Your first post says "a Virtual PC XP I imported into VirtualBox". How exactly did you do the "import"? - because the latter screenshot is clearly not the folder of a VirtualBox VM. It shows an apparantly unmodified VirtualPC folder, in a folder location not typically used by VirtualBox. I see a VHD there, but I see no reference to it in the log file - however on that final point I confess that I try as much as possible to avoid all use of difference images so I'm not familiar with how the difference chain should manifest in a log file.

This is how the VM was "imported" (probably the wrong description, in hindsight). I had two XP VMs in VirtualPC. Windows 7 was released and of course isn't supported in VirtualPC so I moved to using VirtualBox. But I didn't want to mess around with using VirtualPC for XP and Vista, and VirtualBox for Win7+ so I renamed one of my existing XP VM to "DO_NOT_USE_..." within VirtualPC (that is the *.vmc that you see in the screenshot).

The VHD from that VirtualPC VM is the *.VHD in the screenshot. Then, I created a new VM in VirtualBox via the 'use existing VHD' option, and pointed VirtualBox to that VHD. I was able to open the VHD in VirtualBox, install the VBOX guest additions and have used that VM successfully for, I think, four years, until I upgraded to version 4.3.20 of VirtualBox. It was after that upgrade that things went wrong. More precisely, things went wrong after the Guest Additions were properly upgraded, I had completed a couple of shutdowns and restarts, and created new snapshots then deleted the older snapshots. The snapshot mergers seemed to complete properly. I only ever have *one* snapshot, my baseline, that is replaced with a new baseline snapshot after important changes are made such as software upgrades.

I know it's not a typical folder location for VirtualBox; the folder is on a secondary local drive. I do not like storing things like VMs on C.

For some reason, VirtualBox knows what VHD to use, but can't access it. I was hoping that there is simply a config file somewhere that was mishandled during the snapshot merge, because even restoring a backup of the VHD hasn't helped, which seems to rule out a VHD corruption. Attempts to clone the affected VM (full or linked) also fail.

[mpack]

Ok. Please review what I said in my first post in this topic. I suggested a method of debugging the situation with CloneVDI which you seem to have ignored. ISTM that is still the best way forward.

p.s. I have no problem with storing VMs on a secondary local drive, in fact I do that myself. But, IMHO you should still relocate the entire VM there, not have files for one VM scattered over multiple folders on multiple drives. That's just asking for trouble.

[Sandi]

Ok. Please review what I said in my first post in this topic. I suggested a method of debugging the situation with CloneVDI which you seem to have ignored. ISTM that is still the best way forward.

p.s. I have no problem with storing VMs on a secondary local drive, in fact I do that myself. But, IMHO you should still relocate the entire VM there, not have files for one VM scattered over multiple folders on multiple drives. That's just asking for trouble.

Apologies for the severely long delay mpack. Things have been crazy around here. I'll give CloneVDI another go - IIRC I couldn't get it to work but I can't find any notes about an attempt so maybe I'm mis-remembering. I agree re the scattering, and I'll look at getting that sorted out too.