Toatally new at this need some advice please!

[sit-k]

Ok i hope i put this is the right thread. The problem is i dunno the 1st thing about this and have tried to get this to tun but with no luck. Here is what i am running

Windows Vista: Service pack 2
Manufacturer: Gateway
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.40 GHz

I wanna make sure that i am dowloading the correct VM, I downloaded the 3.0.2 for windows host x86 amd64 and i got to dl correctly and everything. The problem is when i got to start it it says no bootable medium found! I think and im probably wrong i have nothing in my iso image file and thats about where i am at right now. So any ideas would be greatly appreciated ty.

[wasas]

So add the ISO's to the media folder, then mount them and reboot.

This is pretty basic, even for me being a noob as well. maybe RTFM?

[sit-k]

So add the ISO's to the media folder, then mount them and reboot.

This is pretty basic, even for me being a noob as well. maybe RTFM?

I would if i knew where the ISO'S was. RTFM?

[SecretCode]

What guest operating system are you trying to install? Do you have an .iso image of a boot disc for the guest? If so, mount it as the cdrom for your guest.

If not, you can attach the guest to your physical cd drive.

Think of a guest virtual machine as a new, empty PC - empty hard drive, empty CD/DVD drive. You have to install an operating system on it, from a CD or something equivalent.

[mpack]

The problem is i dunno the 1st thing about this.

Don't worry, we were all noobs once - but it would have been very helpful if you had ever installed an operating system for real, on a real physical PC. Because, if you don't know what to expect from a real PC then it's hard to describe how a VM is different!

But, I'll try.

VirtualBox is not a ready-to-run application like say Office is, VBox is instead basically a Virtual PC simulator. Another name for a simulated PC is a Virtual Machine or "VM" (I noticed that you were referring to VBox itself as a VM). However a PC is nothing by itself, it has to have hardware to control, and you need to install some software - starting with an operating system.

Configuring the hardware: the first thing is to tell VBox how much memory the virtual PC has (VBox will prompt for this when you create a new VM). This has to be big enough to do a good job of running your VMs operating system and apps, but not so much that you leave your host short of memory. Remember that all memory in the guest is on loan from the host! Hard disks: again, you need to create a virtual hard disk large enough to be a reasonable size for the OS you intend to run. There are other hardware features you could add to the simulation as well, such as a network card etc.

Ok, now you have a brand new virtual PC. But, the hard disk is blank and unformatted (so it will not boot) and you have no software to run. So, now you need to install an operating system. On real hardware you would boot up your "blank slate" PC with a bootable install CD containing your OS of choice. In a VM you can use a physical CD or a virtual CD: the latter being an image of your bootable install CD saved in the .ISO format. There are freeware tools on the web that can create these images, I like "ImgBurn". Start up the VM with a virtual boot CD image mounted in the virtual CD drive and let it rip! Formatting your hard disk and making it bootable is one of the things the OS install program does.

[mpack]

A couple more things:

Although with a VM you can install your OS using either a physical CD or ISO image, the ISO image is much easier and faster.

If your guest OS is Windows, you need an install key. I recommend you do not use the same key you use for the host, as that can lead to activation problems (MS thinks you are installing this license on multiple PCs, which you are, kind of, though the legalities are debateable).

[sit-k]

What guest operating system are you trying to install? Do you have an .iso image of a boot disc for the guest? If so, mount it as the cdrom for your guest.

If not, you can attach the guest to your physical cd drive.

Think of a guest virtual machine as a new, empty PC - empty hard drive, empty CD/DVD drive. You have to install an operating system on it, from a CD or something equivalent.

well i run vista so i was just trying to add that to it cuz i have no os disk's, i need to find out where to dl it from somewhere or find it on my pc to put it on the vm lol im lost heh ><

i think i pretty much just need to find out where i can get my iso image at ?

[mpack]

well i run vista so i was just trying to add that to it cuz i have no os disk's, i need to find out where to dl it from somewhere or find it on my pc to put it on the vm lol im lost heh

That is exactly what you should not do. Your copy of Vista is licensed to your physical host machine. Legal issues aside, when you try to activate the Vista guest (assuming you installed it using the same license key), you will run into problems. It is technically possible to get around this, but it isn't practical for a newbie to attempt. You can only use license keys that nobody else is already using.

As to downloadable ISO's, you can no doubt find them online for various flavours of Linux. In fact you can find readymade Linux virtual machines. You can not find legal Windows CD images online, as far as I know anyway. Don't ask about illegal downloads here, you will get yourself banned.

i think i pretty much just need to find out where i can get my iso image at ?

Your PC should have come with a setup CD, you would need this to reinstall the OS if you had a hard disk failure or something. You can create an ISO from that yourself using something like ImgBurn (google for it). However, as I mentioned already, the problem with installing a Windows guest (XP and later) is activation. I bought a second XP license for this reason.

Incidentally, I don't want to get into OS wars, but I would recommend an XP guest over a Vista one. All the same apps (more or less) run on it, it needs less memory, and many of the selling points of Vista are either not necessary or not available in a VBox VM (Aero for example).

[sit-k]

well failed lol done trying thanks for the help anyway!