virtualbox.org

I used the instructions hereto install VirtualBox-2.1.0_41146_rhel5-1.i386.rpm

Half way through the rpm install the server rebooted, though I'm not sure yet if it caused by the kernel changes made during the install, but pretty sure it was.

Now on boot it gets to 'Starting VirtualBox Kernel module' and then reboots.

Its stuck in this loop...

I'm going to use a boot cd to try and get in and work out the problem, but to be honest I'm not really sure exactly what to do to stop the server trying to load the VirtualBox Kernel Module, so if someone with experience could explain what I need to now that'd be highly appreciated!

I'd call myself intermediate unix user so no need to hold my hand, but any mention of the word kernel seems to make me scared...

You should have the option for a single user or recovery boot. Choose that from your boot menu. It should load a lot less, and hopefully skip the VB module. In this single user/recovery mode, you can try to remove, repair or reinstall VB.

If all this doesn't work, you can of course always boot a live CD from your distro and choose to recover your system. It should drop you to a command line with your / as root file system.

thanks for the response. I managed to remove VB through single user mode as suggested.

I believe the problem is that I had a CentOS 5.2 installation in which I'd installed packages from the 'Virtualization' group. It looked like doing that made it install with a different kernel that had been altered to support Xen. Does this sound like it would cause the problem I had?

Ah, VB is not compatible with the Xen kernel, because you can't run two hypervisors at the same time. KVM has this same issue. VMWare would give an error if you would install it. You need a normal kernel (like the -generic, or -i686) if you want to run VB.