problem starting WindowsXP

[quinox1]

Hi tehre,

I'm new to virtualbox and always worked with KVM and Xen before.

I have Ubuntu 10.0.4 running on a desktop with SSD drives. I installed WindowsXP on Virtualbox with no problem and can see the .hdd image in my home-folder.
After shutting down the VM and start it up again, i get the following message:

FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted!

I removed al other drives from the settings page, select the HDD as primary boot device, but nothing seems to work.

Please some help to solve this.

Thanks in advanced.

Kind regards,

Roland

[mpack]

The message means that you don't have a bootable drive attached to the VM. I can't give more details without being there.

I can tell you that .hdd is not the default file format used by VBox for a guest OS newly installed from the GUI. I can also tell you that seeing any such file in "the home folder" is not relevant. If you don't see it referenced in the VM settings then it may as well not exist, no matter which folder it's in.

[quinox1]

Thanks for your response but,

The formats, after installing windowsXP, which I have are .hdd, .vbox.

I have chosen HDD (parallels Hard Disk). This, apparently, creates the .hdd file (in my case WindowsXP.hdd).
Did I had to choose another file-type? if yes...can this be converted?

The funny thing was, if the file-type wasn't correct, it was running before the reboot.

other settings:
1) Storage -> IDE controller -> WindowsXP.hdd
WindowsXP.hdd points tothe right location in the Storage tab
2) Boot order -> Hard Disk on top and selected.

Kind regards,

Roland

[mpack]

I have chosen HDD (parallels Hard Disk). This, apparently, creates the .hdd file (in my case WindowsXP.hdd).

Why did you do that? Why not accept the default value? Do you have a need for the drive to be compatible with Parallels software on a Mac host?

Did I had to choose another file-type? if yes...can this be converted?

There's no definite need to convert it, but every time you choose an unusual step it's more likely you'll put yourself into terrority that is not well travelled by other users. That invites bugs and it makes it harder for other users to tell you what to do to fix problems. So, it's not something you should do on a whim.

If you're correct that the disk is definitely mounted in the VM then the message means that the disk is not bootable. So, either you did not install the OS at all, or you did something like installing the OS into a snapshot and then discard the snapshot, or you've been copying files around after the event. Or you had two disks and deleted one... Lots of possible causes. As I said before, I don't know exactly what you did wrong because I wasn't there to watch - but the error message means what it says.

[quinox1]

I have chosen HDD (parallels Hard Disk). This, apparently, creates the .hdd file (in my case WindowsXP.hdd).

Why did you do that? Why not accept the default value? Do you have a need for the drive to be compatible with Parallels software on a Mac host?

In KVM/XEN parallels means paralell virtualization which is much faster then the default fully virtualization.

Did I had to choose another file-type? if yes...can this be converted?

There's no definite need to convert it, but every time you choose an unusual step it's more likely you'll put yourself into terrority that is not well travelled by other users. That invites bugs and it makes it harder for other users to tell you what to do to fix problems. So, it's not something you should do on a whim.

If you're correct that the disk is definitely mounted in the VM then the message means that the disk is not bootable. So, either you did not install the OS at all, or you did something like installing the OS into a snapshot and then discard the snapshot, or you've been copying files around after the event. Or you had two disks and deleted one... Lots of possible causes. As I said before, I don't know exactly what you did wrong because I wasn't there to watch - but the error message means what it says.

Just did a "normal" install of the OS, but it seems I have to reinstall is now.

Kind regards,

Roland

[BillG]

If you did a "normal" install (by which I mean using the default settings) the virtual hard disk would be a .vdi file.

I would just start again.