Error loading operating system (Win XP raw guest on Gutsy)

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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chiron80
Posts: 2
Joined: 11. Nov 2007, 06:07

Error loading operating system (Win XP raw guest on Gutsy)

Post by chiron80 »

I am trying to set up VirtualBox using Ubuntu Gutsy as the host operating system and Windows XP as the guest operating system. I currently have Windows XP installed on a separate partition (of the same hard drive as Ubuntu), and that is working fine. I would like to use the existing installation as the guest installation using a "raw host hard disk."

I have VirtualBox version 1.5.2-25433_Ubuntu_gutsy installed from the VirtualBox repository.

Every time I attempt to boot I get the error "Error loading operating system".

I created the VMDK file three ways:
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/.VirtualBox/VMDK/windowsxp.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1 -mbr ~/Desktop/winxp.mbr -relative -register

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/.VirtualBox/VMDK/windowsxp2.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1 -mbr ~/Desktop/winxp.mbr -register

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/.VirtualBox/VMDK/windowsxp3.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1 -relative -register

After creating the VMDK file, two files are created (windowsxp.vmdk and windowsxp-pt.vmdk), I use the first (windowsxp.vmdk) as the virtual hard drive.

It behaves basically the same regardless.

The file "winxp.mbr" was created using the instructions provided by klaus in the topic:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... k&start=15

For reference, here is the output from the command:

VBoxManage internalcommands listpartitions -rawdisk /dev/sda

VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 1.5.2
(C) 2005-2007 innotek GmbH
All rights reserved.

Number Type StartCHS EndCHS Size (MiB) Start (Sect)
1 0x07 0 /1 /1 1023/254/63 25603 63
3 0x83 1023/254/63 1023/254/63 94 52436160
5 0x83 1023/254/63 1023/254/63 25603 52629003
6 0x82 1023/254/63 1023/254/63 4094 105065163
7 0x0b 1023/254/63 1023/254/63 35769 113451093
2 0x12 1023/0 /1 1023/239/63 4222 186716880

Partition 1 is my Windows XP partition (NTFS)
Partition 2 is the IBM recovery console partition (I think)
Partition 3 is my boot partition (/boot)
Partition 5 is my root partition (/)
Partition 6 is my swap partition
Partition 7 is my shared drive (FAT32)

Any ideas how I can fix this?

- Ben
wd5gnr
Posts: 16
Joined: 21. Oct 2008, 02:47

Post by wd5gnr »

This happened to me and for whatever reason Linux had reassigned my drive names. So /dev/sdb1 had become /dev/sda1 and creating a new raw file solved the problem.
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