Unable to install 64-bit guests

[Perryg]

@marcoc,

What happens if you set the guests RAM to 1GB with the host having approx. 2G available?

Also from the hosts terminal/command window type VBoxManage showvminfo <VM Name> --details and post here. Replace <VM Name> with the actual name of the VM. Use " " if the name has a space in it.

Note if the host is Windows you need to be in the directory that has VBoxManage.exe for the command to work.

[marcoc]

http://i.imgur.com/trNio.jpg

[Perryg]

OK so when you select to create this guest did you select 64 bit from the pull down window?
The reason I ask is hardware-v & ioapic are off and they are required for 64 bit OS guests.

[marcoc]

OK so when you select to create this guest did you select 64 bit from the pull down window?
The reason I ask is hardware-v & ioapic are off and they are required for 64 bit OS guests.

Stupid me, I created a 32-bit guest. Here's a correct picture: http://i.imgur.com/FAXgH.jpg

[Perryg]

OK given that you have changed it now does it work?

[marcoc]

OK given that you have changed it now does it work?

It doesn't.

[Perryg]

What happens if you create the guest as 64-bit? Making sure that you set the guest to 1GB and have more than 1.5GB available on the host.

[marcoc]

What happens if you create the guest as 64-bit? Making sure that you set the guest to 1GB and have more than 1.5GB available on the host.

Nothing happens. Doesn't work. That's what I've been trying all along.

[TillF]

Hi all,

I think I've got the exacly same problem. However, the background is a bit different in my case:

I've got 2 Host PCs: one desktop PC (Intel Q9400, 8GByte RAM, Win7 64bit) and one laptop (Intel i5 2520M, 8Gyte RAM, Win7 64 bit as well). And I've got a properly running Debian 64bit Guest on the desktop PC. I stumbled over the problem when I tried to copy the Debian guest to the laptop. I tried both using the "Export Appliance" functionality and re-creating the guest manually (by clicking "new" and selecting the VDI as hard disk).

In both cases, the VM starts and displays the Grub bootloader (my Debian offers 2 kernels to choose from). If any kernel is booted, both the kernel image and the initrd image are loaded correctly - but then the VM seems to freeze exactly as you describe. No errors are displayed.

I spent half a day figuring out what might be the problem, then I found your post. This made me try to install Debian from scratch into a completely new VM on the laptop. I mounted original .iso file - and voila: as soon as the installer is started, VirtualBox seems to freeze. If I select an .iso for a 32bit OS, everything works fine.

Unfortunately, I cannot offer a solution. However, I can confirm that memory is not the issue. I've got 6 Gigabytes of free RAM available (see log below). And I can confirm that it has something to do with 32bit/64bit guest OSes and that the error is host-specific but not Windows 7-specific.

marcoc, have you been sccessful in the meantime?

Attached is my log file. Thanks for any help.

Small remark: I found it a bit disturbing that every second answer suggested something about RAM even if it was stated clearly that this cannot be the issue. Sometimes it was just obvious that people did not read marcocs' complete posts... I really appreciate your (free!) help, but I think questioners would like to be taken serious as well

/edit: Of course I also tried the latest version of VBox (4.1.20); same problem.

[TillF]

Sometimes the solution is so simple. In my case hardware virtualization was disabled in the BIOS.

For 64bit guests, hardware virtualization is required, thus disabling VT-x/AMD-V in the settings of the virtual machine didn't make any difference. Because of this I somehow concluded that hardware virtualization cannot be the reason. Too bad.

@marcoc: I think this should solve your problem as well. Look for a virtualization option in your BIOS. If there is none you're probably lost, as you already stated that there is no update available for you BIOS.

/edit:
@marcoc: I just remembered that you said everything works fine under a linux host on the same machine. This might imply that my problem has nothing to do with yours. On the other hand it could be that VirtualBox for linux allows running 64bit guests without hardware virtualization support (which is impossible at least under windows)... does someone know more about this?

[Munclematt]

I have the exact same issue occuring. Have you figured it out?

Running Windows 7 64-bit host and trying to Launch an Ubuntu -64Bit and Kali -64Bit VM's with no success.

Here is the kicker. When I go to create the VM, it will not allow me to select a 64-Bit machine. Only is letting me select 32-bit. Any reason why that could be? Running the newest version of VirtualBox

[mpack]

I have the exact same issue occuring. Have you figured it out?

The previous poster said yes to that in his first sentence. Was your question aimed at someone else? Have you tried what he suggested?

[Jahan]

Any idea when the new release will be up ..as newer version somehow doesnt support 64bit guest on Windows host for me.

[mpack]

Yes it does, provided you have all the prerequisites discussed in the user manual.