Windows 10 Guest OS won't boot

[greenlakes]

OK, consummate newbie here, so apologies in advance! I have a laptop with an Ubuntu 19.1 partition and a Windows 10 partition. I'm trying to run Windows 10 under virtualbox on the Linux side. When I try to fire up the virtual machine it just produces a black screen with a flashing cursor and then sits there forever. I've read the log (attached) but since I don't know what I'm looking for I sure don't see anything super obvious. Can anybody rub my nose in whatever is probably right there in front of me?

Thanks!

..glen

[mpack]

00:00:00.464032 VirtualBox VM 6.0.14_Ubuntu r132055 linux.amd64 (Oct 17 2019 07:24:16) release log

You are using the Ubuntu project's VirtualBox fork. We don't support forks here. Please install VirtualBox as downloaded from the Downloads page, or visit the Ubuntu forums for support.

I will say that your Win10 install doesn't seem to be legitimate. The disk image is a VMDK, the name doesn't match the VM, and the file is not inside the VM folder, so this VMDK was copied from elsewhere and not installed from fresh by you. In that case Win10 was not properly installed for the hardware it sees, so yes, failure to boot, failure to activate are all to be expected.

If you want to successfully get a VM going then (a) Install the real VirtualBox, (b) Get yourself a Win10 license and install ISO, (c) follow the instructions in chapter 1 to install Windows properly from the ISO: it's quite easy. My recommended recipe is 2 cores (no more no less), 4GB RAM, 128MB graphics RAM, 64GB dynamic VDI hard drive.

[greenlakes]

Thanks for the reply, I will do as you suggest. However FWIW (and that's not a lot):

• The Windows image is what came on the laptop fresh from the factory on the Thinkpad X1.
• I created the VMDK using VBoxMange, however I likely screwed it up because I had no idea that the name had to match the VM (not even fully sure what that means, but I'll figure it out!). I had done a lot of playing with filenames so again, I'm sure this is my error
• I've tried installing the real VirtualBox and had no success, it constantly complained about, well, something that I can't remember so I probably shouldn't even be mentioning it here! (but heck, I'm a vbox idiot so why not keep going?)

Anyway, I do appreciate the response because it gives me several clues as to where I should be swinging my virtual hammer, I'll get to it!!

[mpack]

The VMDK does not have to match the VM name. The fact that the names were different was simply an indicator that I didn't have all relevant information. In this case I didn't realize that you were trying to use the same Win10 image in both physical and virtual machines. Windows activation is always going to ensure that using the same image in two PCs will be difficult, that is the point of activation after all. In fact I'm not sure I know anyone who has succeeded in the long term. Plus I'd be amazed if a newbie got the VMDK descriptor right when dealing with a dual boot system. You would have to map only the Windows partition, and then provide dummy data to fill in the boot sectors and partition map areas of the drive, and of course the partition map would have to be the correct form (i.e. MBR with EFI disabled, since EFI/GPT would be fiendishly difficult).

You would have far greater success making a straight VM, though you may still be able to access the physical drive as a second drive in the VM - or even more simply as a shared folder if the Linux host already has access.

[greenlakes]

Ah...well...then. It's a case of a typical newbie biting off more than they should chew!

Thanks for the info, knowing that it's a fool's errand (at least in my case) will save me sooooo much time because I'm the kind of guy who would bang on this forever just because it's a challenge.

So I'll now go figure out how to make a straight VM. One last question: does that mean that I'll have to purchase another copy of Win10? I'm guessing the answer is "of course it does!"

<edited>: Wait, hold that thought. Just downloaded the ISO, used my office365 credentials, and it looks like I'm actually running...who'd have thought it would be that easy. Wicked cool,

Thanks again.

..glen

[mpack]

One last question: does that mean that I'll have to purchase another copy of Win10? I'm guessing the answer is "of course it does!"

Actually the answer is: yes, unless your Win10 license allows for multiple installations (some Enterprise licenses do). I don't see that you've given any indication of what Win10 flavor or license it is.

If it's an OEM license that came bundled with a PC, then yes, you'll need another for the VM. If you asked Microsoft they would no doubt say that you need a separate license for every VM instance, but I wouldn't go that far. I usually have one VM license per PC, per Windows flavor, and since I only run one VM at a time I think I would have the moral and legal higher ground in any court case. In my mind it's no different from restoring from a selection of Windows backups: I don't need one license per backup.