Critical error on GRUB loading

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egg82
Posts: 4
Joined: 9. Dec 2013, 19:24

Critical error on GRUB loading

Post by egg82 »

I've been using VirtualBox for quite some time for pretty much everything I would otherwise need to reboot my system for. It's a great time-saver, thanks to the guys developing this software.

Now recently I gave my PC quite an upgrade in a few respects and ever since then any Linux distro I try to install with VB winds up erroring out when GRUB starts to load. It wasn't as much of a problem before since I didn't really need to use it, but recently I've been helping with some projects that require cross-platform and basic penetration testing which would be more difficult to do in Windows.

Here's the logs and screen shot, I hope I can get some help on this matter.
Apologies, I had to zip everything up. It was a bit big.
Attachments
VBox.zip
(39.6 KiB) Downloaded 134 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Critical error on GRUB loading

Post by mpack »

Did your upgrade procedure involve you cloning or exporting this VM, or cloning the disks?
egg82
Posts: 4
Joined: 9. Dec 2013, 19:24

Re: Critical error on GRUB loading

Post by egg82 »

mpack wrote:Did your upgrade procedure involve you cloning or exporting this VM, or cloning the disks?
Nope, everything including the host OS was a fresh install (Windows freaked out after the upgrade and refused to boot)
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Critical error on GRUB loading

Post by mpack »

00:19:43.545091 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
00:19:43.545093 !!
00:19:43.545093 !! Guru Meditation 1155 (VINF_EM_TRIPLE_FAULT)
00:19:43.552440 !!
We've been seeing a few of these lately, cause is not yet determined, although there has been recent speculation that it only happens with AMD FX series multi-core CPUs. In your case I see you've assigned 3 cores to the guest, plus I also see the following lines in the log :-
VBox.log wrote: 00:00:02.115984 Logical host processors: 6 present, 6 max, 6 online, online mask: 000000000000003f
00:00:02.116146 Physical host cores: 3
Perhaps try configuring your VM with one core.
Warfarsniper1
Posts: 4
Joined: 10. Dec 2013, 18:55

Re: Critical error on GRUB loading

Post by Warfarsniper1 »

Hi I found a fix for me at least:

Disable the: Enable PAE/NX tick box.
I cant post a screenshot because this is my first post, You can find this option in the processor tab of system settings.

Hopefully helps you

EDIT: Ok that doesnt work the VM booted once :(

If this helps in anyway I have a AMD FX CPU.
egg82
Posts: 4
Joined: 9. Dec 2013, 19:24

Re: Critical error on GRUB loading

Post by egg82 »

mpack wrote:Perhaps try configuring your VM with one core.
Tried that earlier, unfortunately it still didn't work :(
I also tried disabling PAE/NX on top of the single-core.

I changed some other settings as well, hopefully one day a new version will come out that fixes this issue and I can just boot into the OS.
Speaking of, booting into a live CD with the VM works quite well. I just don't want to do that because I like having updated tools.

Quick edit: Disabling nested paging and PAE/NX seems to resolve the issue? It's booted for the first time; I might've just been very lucky, though.
Attachments
Logs.zip
(35.94 KiB) Downloaded 39 times
egg82
Posts: 4
Joined: 9. Dec 2013, 19:24

Re: Critical error on GRUB loading

Post by egg82 »

Host OS: Win 7 Ultimate
VM OS: Kali Linux (probably works for all Debian-based distros at the very least)
Processor: AMD FX 6300 six-core

Disabling nested paging seems to work 100% of the time, number of cores and PAE/NX doesn't seem to matter.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Critical error on GRUB loading

Post by mpack »

Thanks for that last tip, that will be useful in answering this issue when it comes up again. It may also help the devs.
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