virtualbox.org

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing'/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup'as root. If it is available in your distribution, you should install the DKMS package first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary.

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

sudo apt-get remove --purge virtualbox-4.1

Sasquatch wrote:Check the status with the dkms command, like this:

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dkms status

That will show you if the module is installed properly. If it is listed there and working fine, and you still get the error, then remove the module using the dkms remove option. Read the dkms man-page for more information on it's usage. Once you have removed the module, you should be able to restart and shut down the system normally again without things hanging.

What you are describing is that the configuring step of VB somehow failed and you got a broken installation. You can mark it for reinstall or use one of the following commands as root:

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aptitude reinstall virtualbox-4.1
OR
dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-4.1

dkms status
vboxhost, 4.1.8: added

Sasquatch wrote:This means that the module is added to the DKMS tree, but it's not build, nor installed. So you're missing some packages or the dkms build procedure got aborted. VB will hang at trying to unload it's modules, because there are none.
To fix the bunch, we can ask dkms to build and install the modules. This is done with the following commands, but please bear in mind that the kernel version may differ and cause the commands to fail. You have to fix that yourself with the --help and manpage output. Either switch to the root user, or run every command with sudo.

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dkms build -m vboxhost -v 4.1.8 -k `uname -r`
dkms install -m vboxhost -v 4.1.8 -k `uname -r`

That should do it. Then you can run this command to start the modules:

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/etc/init.d/vboxdrv start

You may need to use 'restart' instead. You can also use the 'service' command, which would look like this:

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service vboxhost start

 /etc/init.d/vboxdrv restart
 * Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules   

dkms status
vboxhost, 4.1.8, 3.2.0-030200-generic, x86_64: installed (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!)

Sasquatch wrote:Oh, you run the kernel mainline version 3.2. That can be the problem. I suggest you boot into the distro shipped kernel instead. For Ubuntu 11.10, that's 3.0.0.14.16. VB hasn't been made compatible with the Ubuntu 3.2 kernel yet.

But, the error itself shows what the problem is. You can use the earlier used commands (with some modifications) to remove the module and set them up again with 'service 'vboxdrv setup'.

dkms remove -m vboxhost -v 4.1.8 -k 3.2.0-030200-generic

dkms remove -m vboxhost -v 'uname -r'

Sasquatch wrote:You can also provide '-k all' as a remove option to remove it for every kernel, but that doesn't matter much as you have only one kernel with the modules.

All in all, it's worth a shot to rebuild the modules. When it hangs at stopping the modules, you can leave it and it will eventually continue. Only when you're more experienced with Linux may you take a look at the init script and attempt a manual build.

 * Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules

ps aux | grep vbox
ps aux | grep virtualbox

Sasquatch wrote:Run the following two commands to remove the startup of the modules and do a forced shutdown. As root or with sudo of course.

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update-rc.d -f vboxdrv remove
shutdown -rf now

The first removes the startup of the VB modules, so it's status should never go to 'running' or something like that. The script to stop the modules should then, after the reboot (second command), exit right away because the modules were never started, thus not running.

ata1: softreset failed (device not ready)
ata2: softreset failed (device not ready)
SP5100 TCO timer: mmio address 0xfec000f0 already in use
* stopping save messagges [OK]

* Stopping save system clock to hardware clock

Sasquatch wrote:The softreset things are not caused by VB. They can be caused by bugs in the driver, buggy BIOS/firmware or defective hardware. Unless you have issues with anything, I wouldn't care much about it.

You know what the real cause was for the problem? I think it's the kernel you were running. Normally, 11.10 comes with 3.0 and VB is not made for 3.2 yet.