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Hello all. I am trying to install a Windows 95 and a Windows 98 vm on my computer (running Vista). For both of them I get the "fatal: no bootable medium found" error.

For the Windows 98 machine, I have tried it with the iso file directly, and with the iso mounted as a virtual drive. I can run the setup.exe file from my OS directly and it works ok, but for some reason, will not boot in the VM. The CD/DVD drive is enabled, and I have tried it with and without passthrough enabled.

As for the Windows 95 machine, I tried it with the CD directly with the same problem. I can run the setup.exe file from my own OS, yet it will not boot on the VM. Any ideas?

Are you sure that the CDs are bootable? If I remember correctly, Windows 95 CDs and earlier versions of Windows 98 were not bootable. You had to boot from a floppy.

You may be right on the Windows 95 one. But the Win98 is the second edition, and I'm almost certain I've booted straight from the CD on a fresh install before.

Win98SE does have bootable CD's (where Win95 doesn't) but you may have a problem in getting the CD drivers loaded properly. Using bootfloppies is the more failsafe method. And then there's the famous Tutorial: Windows 95/98 guest OSes in here http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9918

Great idea! I have made some progress. I looked around and found a virtual boot disk, which I then used to create a partition on C, and then attempted to start the Win98 machine. But after that, I'm stuck again. It starts loading, but gets stuck on the following:

AIC-6260/6360/6370 ASPI Manager for DOS
Version 3.68S
Copyright 1990-1997 Adaptec, Inc.

I've let it sit there for close to an hour and it doesn't change. I've tried 2 separate ISO files, but they get stick in the same place. Any ideas?

It's a little while since I did this but since you got as far as you got: you can copy the install stuff to a 2nd virtual HDD, and run setup from there. In addition to what you already did: just keep on booting from floppy. This way you get around any problems that might result from CD drivers. Note: you can use host-based utilities for the copying process if you like (e.g. ImDisk).

I've been installing Win98 today and had the same hang, I think.
I got past it by un-mounting (?) the floppy drive. I also moved it to 3rd boot device position - in the settings window - but I think it was the dismounting (?) that did it.