virtualbox.org

I recently bought a Dell PC with Windows 7 64-bit, with the intention of replacing Windows with Ubuntu Linux and installing Win7 as a guest OS in VirtualBox.

Before wiping the hard drive and installing Linux, I made a repair DVD (two, actually, in case one was bad) and backed up an image of the Windows install to an external HD. My assumption was that I would be able to boot the VM from the repair disk and use it to restore the image I'd backed up. I am indeed able to boot the VM from the repair DVD, and it gets as far as the blue splash screen with the magical plants in the lower right-hand corner; a little circular time-marker spins next to the mouse cursor for about 10 seconds and then it goes away; after 1 minute 45 seconds, an error popup appears with the message

Error 0x400110020000102

and an 'OK' button. I click the button, and the boot sequence restarts.

I've configured the VM with 1024M and 2048M RAM, just in case Win7 wanted a lot.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.10; 'uname -a' gives
Linux augustine 2.6.35-30-generic #56-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jul 11 20:01:08
UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'm using the stock 3.2.8-1 virtualbox that comes with my Ubuntu release:
* virtualbox-guest-additions
* virtualbox-ose
* virtualbox-ose-dkms
* virtualbox-ose-guest-utils
* virtualbox-ose-guest-x11
* virtualbox-ose-qt

I've only ever made Ubuntu guest VMs within Ubuntu hosts before; this is my first time to try Windows as a guest OS, and I may well have neglected some step in creating what I needed to initialize the VM.

Any suggestions are welcome. I can post screenshots of what I see if that would be helpful.

Thanks
Chuck

As far as I'm aware, the repair disk is not a full Win7 install disk and cannot be used as such.
There are several posts on this forum relating to this subject with gripes about manufacturers not shipping full versions of the software on DVD.
Contact Dell and ask them to send you a Win7 install DVD, I'll be surprised if they will oblige.
Sorry I can't help any further.

Thanks for the response. I'll give that a try.
Chuck

I am in the same boat except that I have the USB Win 7 Pro install memory stick that Dell sent me. I am on a Studio XPS 7100 which has Ubuntu 10.10 as the host. It runs well.

I have WinXP running under Virtualbox 4 and it runs well.

So, I finally got around to trying to install Win 7 Pro in Virtualbox. Each time I put the USB stick into any USB port on the computer, I get an error message:
Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 18: Error opening '/dev/sdi1': Read-only file system
Failed to mount '/dev/sdi1': Read-only file system

So, I borrowed a friend's Win 7 Pro DVD install disk and put it in the DVD drive and got this message when I started the Virtual Machine for Win 7:
Error mounting: mount: /dev/sr0 already mounted or /media/UDF Volume busy
Also, VB put up a message:
The virtual machine execution may run into an error condition as described below. We suggest that you take an appropriate action to avert the error.
The host I/O cache for at least one controller is disabled and the medium '/root/VirtualBox VMs/Win7/Win7-081311.vdi' for this VM is located on an ext4 partition. There is a known Linux kernel bug which can lead to the corruption of the virtual disk image under these conditions.
Either enable the host I/O cache permanently in the VM settings or put the disk image and the snapshot folder onto a different file system.
The host I/O cache will now be enabled for this medium.

And, I get a message in a VB command window that says:
FATAL: No bootable medium found! System Halted!

I am not sure what to do so I have not gone any further. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Many thanks,

Pablo

pabloikba wrote:So, I finally got around to trying to install Win 7 Pro in Virtualbox. Each time I put the USB stick into any USB port on the computer, I get an error message:Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 18: Error opening '/dev/sdi1': Read-only file systemFailed to mount '/dev/sdi1': Read-only file system

That is because it's write protected. It wouldn't work in VB anyway, because you would require USB boot for it to work, and VB can't boot from USB drives.

pabloikba wrote:So, I borrowed a friend's Win 7 Pro DVD install disk and put it in the DVD drive and got this message when I started the Virtual Machine for Win 7:Error mounting: mount: /dev/sr0 already mounted or /media/UDF Volume busy

Error has no impact for Guest OS operations. It's only a problem for the Host. You have have to check the logs to fix this, but this is not the place to discuss this.

pabloikba wrote:Also, VB put up a message:The virtual machine execution may run into an error condition as described below. We suggest that you take an appropriate action to avert the error.The host I/O cache for at least one controller is disabled and the medium '/root/VirtualBox VMs/Win7/Win7-081311.vdi' for this VM is located on an ext4 partition. There is a known Linux kernel bug which can lead to the corruption of the virtual disk image under these conditions.Either enable the host I/O cache permanently in the VM settings or put the disk image and the snapshot folder onto a different file system.The host I/O cache will now be enabled for this medium.

Do what the error tells you. Then the message won't show up any more.

pabloikba wrote:And, I get a message in a VB command window that says:FATAL: No bootable medium found! System Halted!

Well duh, did you mount it in the Guest? Popping in a disc in the Host drive doesn't mean a thing. You still have to tell the Guest OS to use that drive. Failing to do so will give this error.

Shanks, as Frodo said, repair discs are useless. They are made to work on the hardware they are made on and restoring such things on different hardware (a VM is just that) will always fail to boot. Get a normal install disc to install Windows properly like suggested.