Unable to Boot Windows Guest after importing an appliance

[jgehring]

Hey guys,

i use VirtualBox for some time to manage different Windows XP guests with different kinds if programing software installed.
This all worked fine about half a year, but now with the release of V.3.0.8 and V.3.0.10 i have serious problems after exporting an appliance on my Workstation and importing it on my Laptop.

Export nad import seem to work fine, but when i try to start the imported virtual mashine - wich works fine on my desktop pc - windows crashes with a blue-screen. I tried this with all of my four virtual mashines and on different laptops with the same result.

With VB Versions prior to 3.0.8. I never had this problem - any suggestions/conclusions?

Thanks for your help!

[Sasquatch]

Maybe something went wrong with the settings transfer during export and import. Please check these with the original, Windows doesn't like it for example if you disable IO APIC if it was installed with it enabled. Also the IDE controller might be the issue.

[jgehring]

I checed all settings now and they are exactly the same as aon the original mashine.
I also tried to copy the .vmdk disk image from the working desktop pc to my laptop and then created a completely new virtual mashine with the copied vmdk-drive image as boot drive - also with no success...

[Sasquatch]

Do you use snapshots on the original machine? Do you have only one machine or more on the source? If it's only one, or you want all of them on the other system, you can copy the whole .VirtualBox folder.

[jgehring]

...what do you mean with "snapshot on the original mashine"?

My original Host is Windows XP Pro with VB 3.0.10 installed.
There I have 5 virtual mashines, all WinXP Pro and latest guest auditions installed.
To run all the virtual mashines also on my laptop I normaly used the "export applliance" function of VB on my original mashine and the "import applliance" function on my laptop to have same versions on both computers.

I tried import/export several times with different virtual mashines - all with the same result - they all crash with a windows blue-screen on other computers than the original host...

I will now try to copy the whole VB folder from my desktop pc to my laptop - maybe this helps.

Thanks for your fast help!

[jgehring]

I copied the .virtualbox folder to my laptop but still no luck with booting my WinXP guest.
The thing about that is that i can start the windows guest on my laptop in - I don't kow what this mode is excatly called in english - "safe mode" (german: "abgesicherter Modus") if I press F5 during boot sequence, but not with normal boot option...

[vbox4me2]

Check the 3.0.10 build number against the release number.

[jgehring]

Check the 3.0.10 build number against the release number.

It's the latest Version 3.0.10 r54097...

Is there a way to go back to the 2.x release?

[Sasquatch]

Check the download page, it should have a link to older versions.

[jgehring]

...now after a few more hours of testing I found a difference in the booting process of the virtual mashines on both systems.
On the original system, where everything is running well so far the hardware-virtualisation-icon on the guest window is active direcly after the blue Sun VB screen is shown. On the second system were I try to run the guest as well the hardware-virtualisaton-icon is always greyed and if I go there with my mouse pointer the info text says that VT-x and AMD-V is disabled.
But in the settings for my virtual mashine ACPI, IO ACPI and VT-x/AMD-V is enabled for this mashine - how to solve this problem?

[Sasquatch]

You can't really solve this. The system is not capable of hardware virtualization. You can check the BIOS of the system to see if it's disabled (if available, it's usually disabled). But being a laptop, I doubt it will have the option.

[jgehring]

...but it had woked a before with excactly the same laptop!

As I mentioned before, we use the VB guests for different konds of programming software and to have all laptops of our service guys at the same software release I update the VB guests on my desktop computer and then export it to use with the other computers.
This worked fine until the latest release of VB - I have done this with all five guests and imported it on at least 8 other laptops and workstations without any problems.
And now even If I try an older version of VB (V2.2.x) the guests only run on one system - this can not be a case with the hardware-virtualisation support of one of the laptops cause it worked a few days earlyer...

[jgehring]

...some more testing.

As far as I can see now it's all depending on the "VT-x/AMD-V" setting in the virtual mashine.
These settings are enabled on all my guest systems on my original system and if i disable it I get the same blue-screen as on all other computers where I tried to import one of the virtual mashines.

If I look at the online help I should normaly be able to switch hardware-virtualisaton on/off without having a problem on the guest system.
The manual only warns me not to disable ACPI and IO-APIC if it was once enabled during Windows installation...

If I have to do all the installations again for all five guests it takes me nearly a week...
Is there anything else I can try to get the systems back to work as they did before?

[Sasquatch]

That's the downside of using Windows. Enabling a feature is ok, it just installs the new feature and will use it. But if you disable it again, it will try to use the now removed feature and crashes. If you have a state of before the hardware-v was enabled, then you can get them running again. Else, it's too bad. Go blame Microsoft on this to have such strict hardware rules in the drivers.

You can try to boot the VMs in safe mode and remove the processor driver, shutdown the Guest and disable hardware-v.

[jgehring]

...but the question is still, why it was working nearly half a year and now suddenly I have all this problems with the same hardware I used before?

The only changes I have made are VirtualBox updates and windows security updates as usual...