FATAL: Could not read from boot medium. System halted.

[pac0]

I know that this issue was discussed previously on forum, but none of the proposed solutions worked for me.

Software Info:

version of virtualbox: virtualbox-5.0_5.0.30-112061-Debian-jessie_amd64
host system: Debian GNU/Linux 8.6 (jessie)
guest system: Whonix Workstation 13.0.0.1.4

How it started:
Everything was fine, before fatal launch, the VM wasn't killed/powered off suddenly.
During the fatal launch system was working very slow, it was lagging, and launching anything was taking 10x more time then usually. I've decided to reboot the VM.
System did not reboot or shut down properly and I powered off the VM after couple minutes. After that I've tried to launch system again and I got this sad info:
FATAL: Could not read from boot medium. System halted.
In that attachment to this post I've added VBox.log but not from the first fatal launch but from the newest attempt to start the faulty VM.

What I've tried already:

1. Creating new VM with faulted vmdk. file and trying to access it through Debian Live CD. It launched, but there was many errors during the start up and the volume was not present after the launch of Live CD.
2. Running fsck on unmounted decrypted sda5 partition (where the vmdk file is located), fsck is not performing any scan, I didn't find any solution why it happened. No errors were prompted. I've tried the same from Live CD, and I got the same results.
3. Export Appliance, this is the error:

File not accessible or erroneous file contents.

Result Code:
VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80BB0004)
Component:
ApplianceWrap
Interface:
IAppliance {8398f026-4add-4474-5bc3-2f9f2140b23e}

4. Clone the vmdk file, this is the error:

Could not create the clone medium '/home/xxx/VirtualBox VMs/Whonix-Workstation_2 Clone/Whonix-Workstation_2 Clone-disk1.vmdk' (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).

Result Code:
VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80BB0004)
Component:
MediumWrap
Interface:
IMedium {4afe423b-43e0-e9d0-82e8-ceb307940dda}

5. Just move the vmdk file to another location, and then I got the simple I/O error informing me that I cannot perform this action.

HDD is working good, there is no problems with any other VM's or files, there is no performance problems, just this one VM and vmdk file.

I have couple very important files on that VM that I need to export, ~about 500 KBs. Can you help me? Is there a chance that I will get access to that VM?

Sorry for bad English, it's not my first language.

[Perryg]

First step is to attach the guests virtual HDD to another working Linux guest as a second drive and see if it can read it. If so then try to copy the data you are wanting.

[socratis]

#5 is the clear indicator that the file is corrupted at the host's filesystem. I'm not sure that you can do too much with a corrupted JPEG, AVI, ISO or (in your case) a VMDK file.

[pac0]

First step is to attach the guests virtual HDD to another working Linux guest as a second drive and see if it can read it. If so then try to copy the data you are wanting.

I just did that, didn't work. In attachment there is log of that attempt.

#5 is the clear indicator that the file is corrupted at the host's filesystem. I'm not sure that you can do too much with a corrupted JPEG, AVI, ISO or (in your case) a VMDK file.

So I'm pretty much done?

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

[socratis]

There is the command (haven't used it):

• vbox-img repair   --filename <filename>
                    [--dry-run]
                    [--format VDI|VMDK|VHD] (default: autodetect)

or since this is a VMDK, you could search VMWare's site for tools. Do not keep your hopes high. A corrupt file is a corrupt file. Only a proper backup can save it.

Oh, and stay away from the bogus, hocus pocus, snake oil, I fixes everything, adwares.

[pac0]

I used that command, exactly like this in terminal (I don't know if correctly).

vbox-img repair --'/home/xxx/VirtualBox VMs/Whonix-Workstation_2/Whonix-Workstation-13.0.0.1.1-disk1.vmdk' [--dry-run] [--format CDI|VMDK|VHD] (default: autodetect)

and I got this: bash: syntax error near unexpected token `default:'

So I probably did it wrong. How should I do it?

Also, there's an interesting thing. I've downloaded VMware Workstation Pro 12 and tried this solution: https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micro ... Id=2019259

and I got this: No errors were found on the virtual disk, '/home/xxx/VirtualBox VMs/Whonix-Workstation_2/Whonix-Workstation-13.0.0.1.1-disk1.vmdk'.

I triple check that, every time I got this prompt.

But when I'm trying to mount that virtual HDD through VMware I got this: Cannot read or parse the partition table on the virtual disk.

What you think?

[mpack]

and I got this: No errors were found on the virtual disk, '/home/xxx/VirtualBox VMs/Whonix-Workstation_2/Whonix-Workstation-13.0.0.1.1-disk1.vmdk'.

I triple check that, every time I got this prompt.

IMHO that just means that whatever that tool is, it's input validation is possibly suspect.

From the clues given so far I'd say that you have hard read errors on the host drive. Filesystem repairs and/or thorough surface scan and repair on the host may make it possible to clone the VMDK to good media, though it will most likely still have corruption errors.