Beginning

[darkswitch]

I've read through the docs on creating the initial VM of OSX on OSX. The step I'm failing at is immediate. I've created DMG install media on my desktop. I've selected all of the default VirtualBox settings and entered the first run wizard.

It allows me to select the DMG (InstallESD.dmg) and begins to run, but the only screen is a blank screen. I've tried increasing the RAM but still the same issue.

I'm attempting to install El Capitan, on a (current) El Capitan host.

Host info:
Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 16 GB

Log file: is at pastebin.ca/3558012

I've had to remove a pile of "defaulting to generic code" statements, thousands of them.

Here's a synposis of the steps I've taken:

1) Start VirtualBox
2) Create new VM wizard, accepting defaults (I've selected any number of options of OSX 64 bits)
3) Accept defaults, except increasing RAM to 4Gigs (i've tried several)
4) Run
5) Selecting InstallESD.dmg as boot media

it gets to 'running' but that's it, completely blank screen. I've allowed it to capture the mouse and keyboard. The logs stop and nothing appears to happen.

Anything I can try to get it to boot? I'm just trying to do a completely clean install, and then will try to restore files from a Time Machine afterwards if that works. Ideally I'd just create a VM based on an attached TimeMachine drive (USB) but would be happy making any progress at this point.

Thanks!

[ChipMcK]

Apple has chosen NOT to make a bootable install for El Capitan.

Cutting to the chase (long list of work-arounds), see Re: El Capitan installation stops at 2.0 shell immediately

In particular, the post by socratis dated 6. Apr 2016, 02:00 is a Bash script. You should copy/paste as .sh and use it to create a bootable (for VirtualBox) ISO. The ISO is to be mounted in the Virtual CD/DVD drive of the Virtual Machine.

Smooth sailing!

Updated: spelling errors

[darkswitch]

Thanks for the direction ChipMcK!

I actually did a run around and installed 10.9 on VMWare, and then used VBoxManage to convert the virtual disk to VDI. From there I recreated the VM and attached the VDI which boots and is at least a start!

I'm not sure if I should post a new thread about this separate issue (probably) but I've been searching and found a lot of help that leads me to the conclusion it's 32/64 issue, however all signs point to 64bit being used everywhere.

Now I'm running into what I assumed (probably incorrectly) to be a 32bit issue, where I can't get it to boot with more than about 2GB RAM. I have 9GB available in the logs. (alternatively on my other machine I have 4ish available and still can't pass 2) "00:00:01.946012 Host RAM: 8192MB total, 4578MB available
0"


One of them is a 10.9 host, and the other is 10.11. Do you have any hints or things you'd suggest I search for? I can easily change the slider to more RAM (i.e. it allows me to configure) but it stalls here:


00:02:07.352936 VUSB: Detached 'HidKeyboard' from port 1
00:02:07.353007 VUSB: Detached 'HidMouse' from port 2
00:02:07.356651 NAT: Zone(nm:mbuf_cluster, used:0)
00:02:07.357181 NAT: Zone(nm:mbuf_packet, used:0)
00:02:07.357188 NAT: Zone(nm:mbuf, used:0)
00:02:07.357233 NAT: Zone(nm:mbuf_jumbo_pagesize, used:0)
00:02:07.357716 NAT: Zone(nm:mbuf_jumbo_9k, used:0)
00:02:07.358022 NAT: Zone(nm:mbuf_jumbo_16k, used:0)
00:02:07.358378 NAT: Zone(nm:mbuf_ext_refcnt, used:0)
00:02:07.361591 GUI: UIMachineView::sltHandleNotifyChange: Screen=0, Size=1024x768
00:02:07.361782 Changing the VM state from 'DESTROYING' to 'TERMINATED'
00:02:07.376363 Console: Machine state changed to 'PoweredOff'
00:02:07.714944 GUI: Passing request to close Runtime UI from machine-logic to UI session.


Other things I've seen:

00:00:03.430585 ERROR [COM]: aRC=VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80bb0005) aIID={7303a66d-433b-25a4-f9a8-fcadf87e0c2a} aComponent={DisplayWrap} aText={Could not take a screenshot (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED)}, preserve=false aResultDetail=0
00:00:03.725253 AssertLogRel /Users/vbox/tinderbox/5.0-mac-rel/src/VBox/VMM/VMMR3/PGMPhys.cpp(2805) int PGMR3PhysMMIO2Map(VM*, PDMDEVINS*, uint32_t, RTGCPHYS): PGM_PAGE_GET_TYPE(pPage) == PGMPAGETYPE_RAM
00:00:03.725278 00000000dc000000 isn't a RAM page (7) - mapping 00000000dc000000-00000000dcffffff (MMIO2/VRam).
0

If you have any advice or a chance to help I do appreciate it.

Thanks

[socratis]

1. Start a new thread? Ideally, yes. But in this case... Why? Do you think that people will be confused by the "Beginning" title of this one?
2. You posted excerpts from the log, which the only thing they did is to add noise to the signal. There is no problem in the partial logs. Now, the thing is that in all that noise, I didn't quite understand what the problem is. I think that you can't see more than 2 GB of RAM in the guest? Is that it?
3. Don't assume things (32/64 bit) that may lead you to the wrong path. Just follow the instructions and we'll solve it together.
4. Nice thought of posting the log. I will take a look at it, but, I'd also like to see the "recipe" of the VM, the ".vbox" file:
   1. Right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager.
   2. Select "Show in Finder".
   3. ZIP the selected ".vbox" file and attach it in your response.

[socratis]

OK, I took a look at the logs. Here are some comments:

I'm attempting to install El Capitan, on a (current) El Capitan host.

I actually did a run around and installed 10.9 on VMWare, and then used VBoxManage to convert the virtual disk to VDI.

00:00:01.982728 Guest OS type: 'MacOS109_64'

What's going on over here? What are you trying to install? When you started the thread you talked about "El Capitan", which is 10.11. Since you have a 10.9 and a 10.11 host, I would expect that you would know the difference. Can you please clarify what's going on?

00:00:01.946012 Host RAM: 8192MB total, 4578MB available
00:00:02.061669   RamSize           <integer> = 0x0000000100000000 (4 294 967 296, 4 GB)

You have a little bit more than 4GB of RAM available and you assign 4GB to the guest. Your host is going to starve. Lower it to 2GB or a maximum of 3GB, if you have nothing major running on the host.

00:00:02.062049   VRamSize         <integer> = 0x0000000001000000 (16 777 216, 16 MB)

On the other hand, you have assigned way too little of VRAM to the guest. I would increase it to at least 64MB.

[darkswitch]

Hi Socratis,

Thank you for the response. I really appreciate the community here and it gives me tremendous confidence in Virtualbox suiting my needs.

I'll start a new thread rather than confusing this one if/when I run into further issues as well, but I'll take the opportunity to answer the questions you presented and give a brief update. I apologize for the long winded post I'm about to do (and it's also why I'll start a new thread). The TL;DR is thank you and ChipMK for the assistance thus far. I'm in a place where I'm not stuck at the moment and will try to solve via google before I pollute the forum too much more, apologies for the confusion.



What I'm trying to do:

I use OSX 10.9 (i7, 8GB RAM) at work as my primary work machine.

I use OSX 10.11 (i7, 16GB RAM) at home as my primary home machine, and I'd like to run a copy of my work environment at home in a VM.

I attempted to install OSX 10.11 at home because it's the image I had available (thus the first post). I ran into the issues above. I had some time at lunch and decided to try creating a VM while at work and had a 10.9 recovery partition, as well as access to VMWare. I created a VMWare image, and followed google down the path of creating a VDI from the VDKI. This seemed to work quite well and I could boot into a VM from VirtualBox at home with 2GB RAM. I figured at that point I'd be able to use migration assistant to restore my work environment (TBD) and I'd be up and running. That's why I had 2 guest OS versions and 2 host OS versions to confuse the issue.

How I unblocked this time:

Code: Select all

google: RAM limitation OSX site:virtualbox.org

Led me to: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/11103 and subsequently to http://ntk.me/2012/09/07/os-x-on-os-x/ (as an aside I then found this: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03. ... -processor and changed via the processor system tab instead of VMBoxManage which didn't work for me)

So now it's running in PIIX3 processor, I can assign more RAM.

So from here what I'm going to do is try migration assistant and see if I can get up and running!

The only frustrating thing is I don't understand why I had to change processor modes, nor what it means. But I'll perhaps try and figure that out as I continue to learn.

p.s. Thanks for the tip on Video RAM, I've now assigned more.

[socratis]

Again, you are trying things at random, without a real understanding of what it all means. For example PIIX3 is a chipset, it is not a different processor. Changing the chipset is old, outdated advice and the issue has already been addressed. So, if you want to keep on changing things based on some old blog post, I'm sorry, but I cannot follow you down that path. I'm not saying that you can't/shouldn't. I'm saying don't expect any help.

BTW, I'm still waiting for that piece of information:

I'd also like to see the "recipe" of the VM, the ".vbox" file:

1. Right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager.
2. Select "Show in Finder".
3. ZIP the selected ".vbox" file and attach it in your response.

[darkswitch]

Right, sorry I should have said chipset. I didn't realize it's old advice, but it did work for me so I thought that I was doing it right. I wouldn't quite say I'm doing it at random, but I see what you mean. I'd rather do it right though, so if you can help here is the attached vbox.


Also, if you have advice on resizing the HD partition I'm looking for a good how-to. I see you'd posted in this one so perhaps you've done it before, or know a better way. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=48577

I've resized the VDI and confirmed there is enough space on the host HD. I understand it's not Virtualbox that does the partiion expansion, just wondering if you ran into a tool that did it more easily than command line stuff. (If not I'll try and get a bootable ISO and go that route)

[socratis]

Also, if you have advice on resizing the HD partition I'm looking for a good how-to.

Aren't you the lucky one! I wrote the how-to for HFS+ drives (I assume you are still talking about your OSX guest). Well, booting from an ISO will not get you far (if you manage to, let me know). HFS+ drives are a different beast and even GParted cannot deal with them. So, take a look at: How to resize a Virtual Drive with HFS+. WARNING: Heavy duty command line work! Make a backup!

I have to go somewhere, so I will take a look at the logs later tonight.

[socratis]

location="/Users/djohnson/Downloads/refind-cd-0.10.3.iso"

Can you explain to me what on earth is a Hacintosh CD is doing in there?

<CpuIdTree>
  <CpuIdLeaf id="1" eax="198313" ebx="133120" ecx="2147484161" edx="395049983"/>
</CpuIdTree>

Why, oh why? Did you have problems without setting the CPU leaves?

Again, please stop experimenting without a clear understanding of what your modifications are doing, otherwise you're shooting in the dark and I can't follow up, if in between posts you keep changing things. The word chaotic behavior comes into mind. Here's my advice...

1. Delete all that you've done so far.
2. Start afresh by creating a bootable OSX 10.9 following the instructions.
3. Create a new VM based on the 10.9 template.
4. Boot with the ISO that you created in step 2.
5. Report any problems.
6. We'll take it from there. Please (for the last time, and this time I really mean it) do not go wondering off and modify things that might screw up the whole thing.

[darkswitch]

Going through those instructions now. Those missteps were prior to your warnings, which is maybe why I'd gone down the wrong path. The REFind was an attempt to boot from recovery drive to attempt resize from there (found a thread under Mac guests forum) and the CPU issue was from trying to make it 64 bits. They were all from the forums here and from people who had reported success, but I'm happier to start afresh and make it easier on myself and anyone helping.

I'll report as I go on, thanks.

[darkswitch]

The instructions for Installation of Mavericks were very good, thank you. (Or rather the instructions to create an ISO)

I created the VM with a large enough dynamically allocated VDI to host the whole machine, on a drive with more than enough space as well. Things are progressing, and I've gone in to migration assistant and it's busy now copying data from my time machine backup.

I've only got the defaults right now, with the exception of going to 64M Video memory. I haven't tried to give it more RAM or processors. Overnight I expect the migration to finish and I'll make a full backup copy and try updating things like RAM and number of processors.

I'll let you know how that goes.

[socratis]

it's busy now copying data from my time machine backup

Which means that the installation went as planned, I guess... Great!

[darkswitch]

Yes the basic installation went great. I do still have a problem getting more than 2Gigs of RAM. The environment works, and I upped it to 2 processors without a hit. When I try to go to 4 Gigs RAM it fails to start up as before. Before I try the other chip set I thought I'd post and see if there's a different recommendation?

[socratis]

Since you started with a new VM, please post a fresh "VBox.log.zip" and the new "<VirtualMachine>.vbox.zip", as before, so I can take a look at them. Remember, full startup, full shutdown, then zip the log.