Boot from ISO at command line?

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Linux hosts.
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SimonR
Posts: 35
Joined: 12. May 2014, 04:55

Boot from ISO at command line?

Post by SimonR »

Hi, I have a headless Linux host, with a Windows guest that's "dead". Can anyone tell me the steps I'd need to boot this--from the command line--into the Windows install ISO, so I can see which part of the system is dead? (I figure if it won't boot the install disk, then the VM is corrupted, if it does boot, then presumably now I need to do some windows-level admin to recover it).

For background, and in case anyone can tell me more directly what's wrong, this is what happens when I try to boot it:

Code: Select all

$ vboxmanage startvm AccountsMachine
Waiting for VM "AccountsMachine" to power on...
VBoxManage: error: The virtual machine 'AccountsMachine' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1)
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component MachineWrap, interface IMachine
TIA
Simon
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Boot from ISO at command line?

Post by scottgus1 »

This is indicative of a host issue, not the VM. This happens on Linux hosts, but I am not certain how to fix it. I will move this topic to Linux Hosts, and hopefully a Linux guru can give some guidance.
SimonR
Posts: 35
Joined: 12. May 2014, 04:55

Re: Boot from ISO at command line?

Post by SimonR »

Nah, it's not a host issue, nor is it a Linux issue, it's a stupid human issue (that being me, unless it was in any way unclear).

You can't start a machine on a headless system unless you include the --headless flag.

Sigh. :(
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Boot from ISO at command line?

Post by scottgus1 »

SimonR wrote:You can't start a machine on a headless system unless you include the --headless flag.
Sounds reasonable, thanks for letting us know! There's no GUI capability on the host, so no GUI can be displayed for the VM.

FWIW starting a VM 'headless' does not really mean computer industry "headless" as in no video. It really means "monitorless" in Virtualbox. The VM OS still calculates a GUI if the OS has a GUI, and you can still remote into the VM either through Virtualbox RDP or the VM OS's remote channels and find a regular GUI waiting for you, even though the VM runs on a headless host.
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