winxp VM start problem

[robbyx]

When I do not have usb3 ticked in the VB settings, I get an error message:
Failed to attach the usb device Samsung D3 Station (200) to VM: NS_error_failure.
After that message WinXP loads in VB.

If I tick the USB3 box, windows is unable to boot. It keeps trying to boot, and gives a long message which flashes past too quickly to read.

I suspect my problem comes from unticking some of the virtual boot devices. I have since reticked them but maybe the device that should be booted from first is no longer first in the list. Is there anything I can do about it? How do I work out the correct first boot device?

Robin

[BillG]

Shutdown the guest, select it in the VM Manager window and click Settings. Go to System and move the hard disk to the top of the boot option list. Make sure that it is checked. The vm will always boot from the virtual hard drive.

[robbyx]

I have just followed your advice, for which I thank you. Instead of loading I get a warning that a disk read error occured. Note if I untick the usb 3 box, VB will load into Winxp without a disk read error.

Robin

[BillG]

I doubt that it has anything to do with the boot options. Is your virtual machine trying to use the Samsung drive?

[robbyx]

Yes. The VDI is on the Samsung Drive.

When I load the same VD with only the USB2 ticked, the VD loads with the error "failed to attach the sumsung drive" but it then proceeds to load the VD and show WinXP.

[mpack]

Almost certainly this is because you have located the VM on a USB stick AND you are grabbing ownership from the host and assigning it to the VM during the boot. This is a fatal mistake. Effectively the USB stick was yanked from the host, so I hope you have not corrupted the VDI doing this.

The USB settings on the VM are for controlling USB devices owned by the VM. Otherwise it is normally completely irrelevant what host interface a host device is attached to the host using.

[robbyx]

The VD is on a 1gb external HD and so uses usb3 as its connection device. As I am not using a usb stick for VB, I am wondering what is the solution that will remove the error message about connecting to the Samsung external HD. I still do not understand why it says it can not connect to the Samsung device and then after presenting the message logs into WinXP, which is stored on the Samsung.

Robin

[socratis]

Follow a "start the VM from cold-boot" / "observe error" / "shutdown the VM" cycle. With the VM shut down completely (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log". Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form).

Also, right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager. Select "Show in Finder/Explorer/Whatever". ZIP the selected ".vbox" file and attach it to your response.

[robbyx]

I tried to give you two logs one for when usb2 was ticked. That worked and is attached. When usb3 was ticked I was unable to save the log with any content in it. There were log contents because I could see it on the screen but when I tried to save it a file with 0 bytes was produced. I tried saving to a different location but that made no difference. I suspect that log I was seeing was for usb2 and so with that alteration VM would not save the log for the usb3 variation.

In the VM directory there was more than one .vbox file as can be seen from the dir.txt attached. I have attached the latest of the .vbox files.

Robin