Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

[Brimo]

Hi Guys

I'm totally new to VirtualBox and was quite pleased today in cloning my Windows 7 PC to a blank 2TB external drive plugged into the Win 7 PC using disk2vhd. I then installed Virtualbox 6.1 onto the external drive and then brought in the Windows 7 vhd file.

All went well but when I clicked "Start" I got the following error message
"Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Brians Clone of Win7 PC.
The native API dll was not found (C:\Windows\system32\WinHvPlatform.dll)
(VERR_NEM_NOT_AVAILABLE).
AMD-V is disabled in the BIOS (or by the host OS) (VERR_SVM_DISABLED).
Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: ConsoleWrap
Interface: IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}"

I also noticed that when in the settings tab there is a flag at the bottom reading "Invalid Settings Detected" see screen shot below

Virtualbox 2nd error message.jpg (80.85 KiB) Viewed 5063 times

As stated I am a total newbie with VirtualBox but gather this error might be cured by altering something in the BIOS but I really need advice on what to do as I don't want to make a mess of my original Windows 7 machine.

Thanks in advance

[BillG]

VirtualBox version 6.1 requires hardware virtualization support, even for 32-bit guests. Either it is not enabled in the BIOS, or some other program, such as Hyper-V, has it locked. Your processor may not support it, but that is unlikely unless it is a fairly old PC.

Check that it is enabled in the BIOS. You may need to search the Internet to find how to do that for your PC. It depends on the motherboard as to what it is called and how you enable it. If it is enabled in the hardware but still not available to VirtualBox, use a bcdedit command to prevent the Windows hypervisor from loading.

https://www.tecklyfe.com/windows-virtua ... n-and-off/

If all this fails, your only option is to try VirtualBox 6.0, which had software support for hardware without AMD-V/Intel VT-x .

[Brimo]

Thanks for that Bill - one detail that I left out was that this clone of my old PC was going to be transferred to my new windows 10 machine which already has a VM on it in VirtualBox. Yesterday I was attempting to see if my efforts had worked through my old PC when I should have tried it on my new PC.

Unfortunately because I set my original clone file to be created on my 2 TB removable hard drive on my old PC making it a file on Drive E when I take the removable drive to my new PC and try to create a new VM its saying "VERR_PATH_NOT_FOUND opening image file 'E:\USER-PC.VHD'

I'm presuming that this is because the removable drive on the new PC is allocated Drive D.

Is my only option to now create another clone file and just leave it on the removable drive and then take that to the new Windows 10 PC and create a new VM using that file that's on my removable drive?

I hope I am explaining myself correctly here

[mpack]

The quickest fix would be to dip into the .vbox file with a decent text editor (and with everything VirtualBox shut down), and correct the drive labels in media references.

If you don't see a .vbox but you do see a .vbox-prev then Windows is lying to you about file extensions for registered file types. You can fix that in Windows file explorer options (disable "Hide extensions for known file types").

[Brimo]

Thanks mpack now it is actually running without an error but at the moment the screen is alternating between the Oracle VM screen with the words press F12 to select boot device and a black screen with a sliding bar saying "Windows is loading files.."

Obviously something is not right in the settings and I have the following options

AHCI Controller : 1) Hard disc

Other boot devices:
f) Floppy
c) CD Rom
l) Lan

b) continue booting

I am running this from a removable drive so what do I choose or is something not set right in the VM Manager settings?

Thanks for your help guys - looks like I'm getting there

[mpack]

It sounds like you are now into normal P2V (physical to virtual migration) territory. I suspect Win7 is searching for it's old SATA chipset and not finding it. Compounded by the fact that Windows is set to restart when it bluescreens (for a VM that is not usually the best setting: you want to have time to read the bluescreen info). See User Manual 12.3.5: How to Record Bluescreen Information from Windows Guests.

You could try configuring the VM to use IDE instead. Or, boot the VM from the original Win7 install DVD (or ISO image of same) and repair the installation.