[Solved] Virtual Extensions with HP/AMD

[TBone2k]

Hi all.

Trying to install a new VM in VB 4.3.20. It is going to be a Windows10, although I never get far enough for that to be relevant.

After building the virtual box for the VM, when I power it on I get the following: "VT-x/AMD-V hardware acceleration is not available on your system. Certain guests (e.g. OS/2 and QNX) require this feature and will fail to boot without it."

If I continue, I get the windows logo and then the system crashes with error 0x0000000a.

I tried changing the machine type from windows 8.1 to windows 7. That got rid of the first error, but it still crashed.

The host I am using is an HP Probook 645 with an AMD A6 5350M processor running Win 7-32. Doing some research, I discovered and ran Securable by Gibson Research. It tells me hardware virtualization is on, although there are no BIOS settings to enable/disable.

I moved the VM files over to an Intel based machine and it all works fine. So I'm thinking the problem may be related to this being an AMD?

Thanks!

[mpack]

If VirtualBox is telling you that AMD-v is not available, then it is not available.

The cause would be either than it is disabled in the host BIOS, or you have other software running which has grabbed ownership (e.g. Hyper-v, VMWare, system level debugger, or (rarely) some makes of resident antivirus).

If AMD-v is disabled in the BIOS then you need to get support from whomever made the laptop BIOS.

To install Win8 or later in VirtualBox you must have VT-x or AMD-v available. To install Win10 you currently must use the Win8.1 template (which is not available to you). Win10 will not run with the Win7 template (all regardless of 32bit vs 64bit selection).

[TBone2k]

Thanks for the help.

I contacted HP support and they said virtual extensions are always on in the BIOS. Like I said, I ran Securable and it also said they were on.

I suppose it could be something else that is running, but this is a pretty vanilla corporate laptop. The VM does work on another laptop with the same software, but an Intel processor.

I was hoping to find someone else with some experience on this hardware that could tell me if they had any issues.

I will also try another virtual PC product and see if that works. Would the results of that test be relevant at all?

[mpack]

I will also try another virtual PC product and see if that works. Would the results of that test be relevant at all?

Not really. Different VM platforms can be implemented differently, and have different requirements.

You could try posting the VM log, that could allow a more precise explanation of the failure. Right click VM in GUI, select "Show Log", save "VBox.log" (only) to a file, zip the file and attach the zip here.

[TBone2k]

Contrary to what HP support told me, I updated the BIOS on my Probook 645. Then the option for virtualization showed up and it was off. Turned it on and everything works fine!

Thanks for your help though.

[mpack]

Thanks for letting us know. Perhaps laptops that ship with the later version of the BIOS do have the feature enabled, and that is what the HP support people had in their knowledge base.