"No bootable medium found", partitions not found inside VDI.

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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WildcatMatt92
Posts: 3
Joined: 28. Oct 2017, 20:32
Primary OS: openSUSE
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10

"No bootable medium found", partitions not found inside VDI.

Post by WildcatMatt92 »

I have a Windows 10 VM running inside of VirtualBox 5.1.30 on OpenSUSE Linux. Host has 8GB RAM, Guest has 4GB.

The Linux host experienced a hard crash and after restarting, VirtualBox gave me a "Failed to acquire the VirtualBox COM object" error with an empty VirtualBox.xml file.

I deleted the empty XML file and created a new virtual machine, using the existing VDI file, but when attempting to boot I received the "FATAL: No bootable medium found!" error.

I downloaded a bootable recovery ISO (WinPESE) but the partition recovery tools there don't see anything to recover.

I dumped the VDI to RAW. Linux fdisk sees the partition table just fine and in fact I can mount the main partition and all my files are there. I tried using ms-sys to re-write the MBR and converted the RAW back to VDI, but I still get the same no bootable medium error and the partitions are still not visible.

What can I do to make the partitions visible and restore the VM?
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socratis
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VBox Version: PUEL
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Re: "No bootable medium found", partitions not found inside VDI.

Post by socratis »

  1. I really hope you have a backup, although if you had a backup you wouldn't go through that exercise, no? What I mean is at least a copy of the VDI before you started the "surgeries".
  2. Take a look at CloneVDI. It's the one of the best tools that you can have at your disposal. The latest version can even repair the VDI header, if that's your problem.
  3. If the header is not your problem, and you have some corrupted sectors in your HD that eventually messed up your VDI, then see #1.
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mpack
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Primary OS: MS Windows 10
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Re: "No bootable medium found", partitions not found inside VDI.

Post by mpack »

If the header was the problem then the disk would not be usable in VirtualBox - the VM would refuse to start.

Corruption inside the guest probably originated inside the guest. CloneVDI can't fix that.

Best guess: the original VM used snapshots, the new VM did not incorporate them properly.
WildcatMatt92
Posts: 3
Joined: 28. Oct 2017, 20:32
Primary OS: openSUSE
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10

Re: "No bootable medium found", partitions not found inside VDI.

Post by WildcatMatt92 »

I have never used the snapshot feature with this VM instance.

But here's an interesting development:

I copied the VM over to my Windows 10 laptop and ran CloneVDI. I also installed VirtualBox 5.1.30 there, and it booted both the clone and the original VDI file just fine.

Both VDIs still give "no bootable media" errors under Linux.
WildcatMatt92
Posts: 3
Joined: 28. Oct 2017, 20:32
Primary OS: openSUSE
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10

Re: "No bootable medium found", partitions not found inside VDI.

Post by WildcatMatt92 »

I thought I'd post a followup.

The solution for me was to do a complete uninstall and delete of VirtualBox on the Linux host and then a clean install.

I was then able to recreate the VM and attach the original VDI which booted up like nothing happened.

If anyone can offer a theory as to why a reboot after an upgrade from 5.1.28 to 5.1.30 would cause VirtualBox to not see partitions inside the VM I would love to hear them.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: "No bootable medium found", partitions not found inside VDI.

Post by mpack »

There is no mechanism in VirtualBox which could account for that. The only machanism I can think of is host drive (or filesystem driver) error.
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