Windows Vista guest on partition won't boot

[Atheus]

I am having problems with running Windows Vista 64 bit on Kubuntu Hardy Heron 64 bit with the latest virtualbox 2.0.2 installed. I am trying to run Windows Vista from a partition. I get as far as " windows is loading files" then the system reboots back to the boot loader, grub.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[stefan.becker]

Exact Infos!

At the moment we only know that it doesnt work.

Its your Problem. You have exact to tell all Details like Host, Guest, Version, choosen approach, Guest Settings, Error Messages etc.

[Atheus]

I am trying to run windows vista 64 bit as my guest on Kubuntu Hardy heron 64 bit, latest updates installed, as my host system. The virtualbox version is 2.0.2. I am running my guest from another partition using a vmdk image. This is all being run on an HP pavilion 6200 series AMD Turion Dual Core. I have virtual emulation turned on in the bios. I enabled it in virtualbox and tried to run the vm. It would go through the boot manager, which is grub, but would freeze after I selected windows vista to boot from. When I turned off virtual emulation, in the VM software, I would get to the screen that says "windows is loading files". The loading bar would complete but then the vm would reboot back to the boot loader. I gave 3052 MB for memory and 128 MB for video memory. I also ran the vm with ACPI both enabled and not enabled with the same results. I set the os as windows vista. Other than that, every other configuration is default.

In order to create the vmdk I first ran sudo usermod -a -G disk <username>. Then I rebooted and ran VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename <Absolute Path to output File> -rawdisk /dev/sda -register.

Thanks for the help.

[Atheus]

I just rebooted my machine, turned on emulation in the vm software and received the following error message:

Windows Error Recovery

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.

.......

The rest of the error message talked about using recovery to fix the errors. I couldn't use the cursor arrows to select starting windows up normally. Instead the vm goes into recovery mode and then reboots back into the error dialogue again.

[stephanecharette]

I just rebooted my machine, turned on emulation in the vm software and received the following error message:

Windows Error Recovery

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.

Disclaimer: I'm a linux guy, not Windows. But I recall the following text in the VirtualBox user manual:

Depending on the presence of several hardware features, the Windows installation program chooses special kernel and device driver versions and will fail to startup should these hardware features be removed.

(Section 11.2.1.)

Stéphane

[Atheus]

Is there any way around this problem? My main issue is that my college only offers SAS on windows. I don't want to have to boot into windows every time that I need to use this software, which is frequently. So, I was hoping to boot vista in linux.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[punkybouy]

Are you talking about not installing or not booting after the install ? Can you post some details?

[Atheus]

I'm running Windows Vista 64 bit home premium from a partition that is already bootable and ready to go. When I try to boot the vm it gives me the error that I described above.