Always get "FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted."
Posted: 22. Jun 2021, 20:07
I'm trying to create a virtual Windows 7 or Windows 10 machine to run on my Linux host (xubuntu 21.04) running Virtualbox 6.1.18.
I have a Windows XP guest running OK so my Virtualbox is basically OK.
I have tried creating Windows 7 and 10 images using both Microsoft's disc2vhd.exe and VMware's VMware-converter-en-6.2.0-8466193.exe and I get the same result with both. I always end up having created a new virtual machine using one of the images (vhd or vmdk) with the error message "FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted".
I suspect this is because the 'source' system isn't a Windows only machine, it also has xubuntu linux on it and thus there are several partitions with different OSs and boot is managed by grub. Thus the Windows images I'm creating don't have the 'bootable' bits I need.
Here is the output of "fdisk -l" on the source system:-
root@t470# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: SAMSUNG MZVLW256HEHP-000L7
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: C68F8BD4-1CF1-44B2-88C3-DA104F162594
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 534527 532480 260M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 534528 567295 32768 16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3 790528 125165567 124375040 59.3G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 498069504 500117503 2048000 1000M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p5 125165568 498069503 372903936 177.8G Linux filesystem
Partition table entries are not in disk order.
Disk /dev/sdb: 476.94 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: KingDian N400 51
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x260c022a
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 1000215215 1000213168 476.9G 83 Linux
root@t470#
How do I produce a bootable Windows 10 image?
Oh, an extra bit of information, the 'source' system is EFI BIOS. If I 'Enable EFI' in Virtualbox then when I try starting it then I get dropped into the Grub menu, is there any way of sorting things out from there?
I have a Windows XP guest running OK so my Virtualbox is basically OK.
I have tried creating Windows 7 and 10 images using both Microsoft's disc2vhd.exe and VMware's VMware-converter-en-6.2.0-8466193.exe and I get the same result with both. I always end up having created a new virtual machine using one of the images (vhd or vmdk) with the error message "FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted".
I suspect this is because the 'source' system isn't a Windows only machine, it also has xubuntu linux on it and thus there are several partitions with different OSs and boot is managed by grub. Thus the Windows images I'm creating don't have the 'bootable' bits I need.
Here is the output of "fdisk -l" on the source system:-
root@t470# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: SAMSUNG MZVLW256HEHP-000L7
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: C68F8BD4-1CF1-44B2-88C3-DA104F162594
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 534527 532480 260M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 534528 567295 32768 16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3 790528 125165567 124375040 59.3G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 498069504 500117503 2048000 1000M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p5 125165568 498069503 372903936 177.8G Linux filesystem
Partition table entries are not in disk order.
Disk /dev/sdb: 476.94 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: KingDian N400 51
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x260c022a
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 1000215215 1000213168 476.9G 83 Linux
root@t470#
How do I produce a bootable Windows 10 image?
Oh, an extra bit of information, the 'source' system is EFI BIOS. If I 'Enable EFI' in Virtualbox then when I try starting it then I get dropped into the Grub menu, is there any way of sorting things out from there?