Installing Windows 7

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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rickkaye
Posts: 4
Joined: 28. Oct 2009, 05:29
Primary OS: Mac OS X Leopard
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Win XP

Installing Windows 7

Post by rickkaye »

I am running Virtualbox 3.0.8 on Mac OS X 10.5. I have a working virtual machine running Windows XP Home. Today I bought a downloadable copy of Windows 7 Home Premium (32 bit) from the Microsoft web site. I downloaded Windows 7 to a virtual disk attached to my Win XP virtual machine. I then added an new empty disk to this machine and installed Windows 7 on it. Now when I start the XP machine the Windows boot loader asks me which version of Windows I want to run and they both work fine. But that's not the way I want to run them. I want the two versions of Windows to be separate virtual machines. But when I create a new virtual machine with the Windows 7 disk as it's only HDD it won't boot. I get a FATAL: INT18: BOOT FAILURE error.

Can anyone tell me how to make the disk bootable or how to perform the install correctly. Thanks.

Rick
MarkCranness
Volunteer
Posts: 875
Joined: 10. Oct 2009, 06:27
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Windows Server 2008 R2; Ubuntu 11.04; Windows 2000 Server; Windows XP

Re: Installing Windows 7

Post by MarkCranness »

Perhaps you need to create an ISO from the download then copy the ISO out of the XP VM (to Mac shared folder), then mount that ISO to a new Windows 7 VM and install from there:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/10/2 ... box-files/
http://forums.overclockersclub.com/?showtopic=169044
http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=window ... ital+river
Sasquatch
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Re: Installing Windows 7

Post by Sasquatch »

That's not the problem. The primary hard drive has the boot loader, the second doesn't. Boot the W7 VM with the install ISO and run a repair on it. That should fix the MBR and boot loader. You should do the same for XP, so you will loose the W7 boot loader and question for dual boot.
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rickkaye
Posts: 4
Joined: 28. Oct 2009, 05:29
Primary OS: Mac OS X Leopard
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Win XP

Re: Installing Windows 7

Post by rickkaye »

Mark,

Thank you very much. It worked like a charm.

Rick
rickkaye
Posts: 4
Joined: 28. Oct 2009, 05:29
Primary OS: Mac OS X Leopard
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Win XP

Re: Installing Windows 7

Post by rickkaye »

Sasquatch,

You're right about the boot loader but the first problem was that the downloadable version of Win 7 (or at least the one I got) is not an ISO. I needed to turn it into one before I could boot the Win 7 VM with it.

Rick
BillG
Volunteer
Posts: 5106
Joined: 19. Sep 2009, 04:44
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Installing Windows 7

Post by BillG »

Where did you download Win 7 from? All OS downloads from Microsoft are in iso format these days.
Bill
rickkaye
Posts: 4
Joined: 28. Oct 2009, 05:29
Primary OS: Mac OS X Leopard
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Win XP

Re: Installing Windows 7

Post by rickkaye »

I bought through the Windows 7 student promotion at http://www.win741.com/ and it was fulfilled by Digital River. It is delivered in 3 files as described at http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/10/2 ... box-files/
punkybouy
Posts: 29
Joined: 8. Oct 2007, 02:59
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Windows

Re: Installing Windows 7

Post by punkybouy »

There were several problems with the downloadable student version of Win 7.
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