virtualbox.org

I needed to convert a live system to a virtual machine. I used the Windows disk2vhd.exe utility to create a VHD file of my W2K drive after plugging it into a Windows 7 system using a USB to IDE adapter. It was a dual processor set up with ACPI MultiProc HAL.

I mounted the VHD file as the second drive on another W2K virtual machine, did the mergeide registry hack to solve the inaccessible boot device problem. Then I removed the VHD from the existing W2K VM and created a new one with two cpus.

Problem was it wouldn't boot, crashing in hal.dll, no matter how I permuted the VM settings.

I remounted the VHD in the existing VM again and copied the hal.dll that worked into the VHD system32 folder. I then removed the VHD from the existing W2K VM again.

Then I changed the new dual cpu VM to single cpu. This let me boot into safe mode without networking, where I changed the HAL to single processor motherboard with single CPU ACPI computer and installed the vbox extensions. Then the VM booted fine and I'm in fact sending this running Firefox 7.01 on it.

Is this a known problem with Virtualbox 4.1.4 Windows 2000 guest on Linux (Ubuntu 10.04) host?

I know the Virtual dual monitor support is broken on W2K, is this another breakage because W2K is "obsolete"? Some of us need "obsolete" systems to maintain old hardware and software, I'd been living in fear of a hardware problem, as finding a motherboard that runs W2K is not easy these days and Windows is near impossible to move to different replacement hardware, getting even more difficult with each new version.

wb666greene wrote:Windows is near impossible to move to different replacement hardware

That is the reason you have had so many problems migrating from physical to virtual. This isn't a problem specific to VirtualBox, but to Windows itself.

wb666greene wrote:getting even more difficult with each new version.

Actually, it's easier with newer releases. Windows Vista and 7 handle big hardware differences a lot better than Windows 2000 did. E.g. a small change in IDE controller (i.e. chipset change in the same family, or completely different) doesn't cause it to BSOD, but it does on 2000.

wb666greene wrote:I know the Virtual dual monitor support is broken on W2K, is this another breakage because W2K is "obsolete"?

This is done for several reasons. The biggest is that multi-monitor in Windows 2000 isn't as easy as you may think. Without a tool to configure it with the driver, it will not work. Windows XP and above can do it without a specific tool, thus 2000 is left out. Creating a tool for it or making the driver support it on 2000 is probably considered a waste of time and resources. You can always increase the window size to span both monitors.