virtualbox.org

Hi,

I'm new to Virtualbox and decided to test Windows 7 in guest mode before I decide wether or not to upgrade my existing Windows XP installation.
But when I try to power up the virtual machine I get the following error:

Cannot access the kernel driver!
Make sure the kernel module has been loaded successfully.

Followed by:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Windows 7.
Virtual machine 'Windows 7' has terminated unexpectedly during startup.
Details:
Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Machine
Interface: IMachine {540dcfda-3df2-49c6-88fa-033a28c2ff85}

These are the settings I use:
I have 2gb of physical RAM available to Windows XP.
I have assigned 1gb to the guest (Windows 7).
Tried disabling various settings for the guest but this does not seem to make any difference.
Rebooted after installing Virtual Box 3.0.6.

I seem unable to even try the virtual machine because of this. Any ideas why this might happen?

Try setting the RAM on the guest to 512 or 768 and see if it starts.
Set the VRam to 12 meg

Turn off USB, Audio, 3D effect (these can be turned on later one at a time)

Hi,

Tried setting RAM to 768 and then to 512. VRAM is set to 12mb. Turned off USB, Audio, and 3D effect. Also tried disabling network.
But I still get the same error.

Is this a 32 bit or 64 bit machine and is the Win7 OS 32 or 64 bit?
What are the settings in the Guest system settings?

Hi,

Both are 32-bit.

Here is an extended list of settings turned on:

Remember runtime changes
Show in fullscreen/seamless
Boot: hdd + cdrom
Enable ACPI
Processors: 1 (I have a intel quad core)
Enable VT-x/AMD-v
VRAM: 12mb
IDE controller: PIIX4
Enable network adapter (NAT)

The rest are disabled (USB, Audio, etc, etc).

Can you disable VT-x/AMD-v or is it grayed out? If you can disable it try to run it with the switch off.

Disblaed it, but still same result.

This really is starting to sound like a failed install. If it were me I would start over and use the defaults that VBox sets for you and change nothing.
It is also possible the the ISO that you have of Windows 7 may be corrupt. Did you use a download manager to download it?
Also did you get this from Microsoft or some other location?

The error you get means VB isn't installed properly. Please run the installer again and select "Repair". If that doesn't solve it (after a reboot), remove VB, reboot, then install VB again, reboot to be sure and run the VM.

I uninstalled VB, rebooted, then installed again, and now it works!
The problem seems to have been that I installed 3.0.4 first, and without using it, upgraded to 3.0.6 one day later.
Thanks again for the help