virtualbox.org

Hi,
I am having a problem in getting an xp vm (guest) to open in Windows 7 (host) using VB 4.1.1417xx.

I get the xp logon page with a blue onscreen keyboard overlaying the sign in dialog boxes It partially covers the password box. I do not know if this is stopping me from being able to 'access' the password box, but when I attempt to input the password, no characters are accepted. I can't move or delete this keyboard, although IT may not be the issue. Nonetheless I am unable to log
Altho it is an xp guest vm, it is from my old laptop pc, and the OS was actually the "PC Tablette" version; so I don't know if that is an issue.
My current OS is Win 7 Ultimate running on a Sony laptop. When I booted up my old laptop, the onscreen keyboard would show, but then disappear, but now it is remaining. It HAS disappeare"d, together with the logon boxes, but I then get just a screen with "PC XP Tablette" in a large nice starup page cursive type font, I see no way to get past this, and use the vm. I get no error messges.

I did a search on the forums here, but it kept "ignoring" the 'xp' in the search term.

Does anyone know what I need to do to get this xp vm to open, or can you direct me to where I can find out?

Thanks

P.S. The onscreen keyboard would always appear on boot - but then minimise to the task bar - because it was a tablet laptop, which meant that I could use a touchpen to access the keybiard on the screen. So that part is normal; but as I said, it would then minimise itself. With the VM it doesn't

"it was a tablet laptop". Does this mean that this is a P2V (a migration of an XP image from physical to virtual hdd)? If yes, then how was that accomplished, and has it ever worked as a VirtualBox VM?

Assuming yes and no, I would suggest booting the VM in safe mode, and deleting all apps and drivers that don't apply to the VM - e.g. the VM does not have a tablet.

Internal search ignores words of three letters or less. It's better to use Google to search these forums, e.g. Google "keyword(s) site:forums.virtualbox.org".

Hi mpack,
Thank or your response.
I created an image file, I am no longer 100% certain which application created it, as I tried 2. One was GoVirtual - a Paragon P2V type program, which they no longer have in English, so that it gave me 2 issues when creating it.
First it did not give me the option of "imaging to VB version 4.0, so I had to choose version 3. This may not have be an issue.The other issue was that when creating the image, it informed me I was missing a pars file, which may be the issue. I also tried to create a disktovhd image - which should be a .vhd file, but as I ended up with a vmdk file, it seems I must have used the GoVirtual image.

In any case, there seemed to be no problem when creating the VM. But of course, I have one now, in that I cannot open it.

I do not understand what you mean by the search capability of this 'tablet' xp VM. I have not tried to use any search facility (from outside) of the VM, and I cannot access the VM to search within it.

I did search on google, and after viewing 3 pages of results for "forums virtual box", the only results I saw were for this forum.
Are there others? In fact even on this site, as soon as I entered "xp" plus other terms such as "open", "start" etc, I got absolutely NO results. Surely there must be other people with xp issues in VB??!

Thanks

Grewster wrote:I also tried to create a disktovhd image - which should be a .vhd file, but as I ended up with a vmdk file, it seems I must have used the GoVirtual image

Yes, you definitely didn't get a VMDK when using Disk2VHD - the Disk2VHD application simply doesn't have the capability to write VMDK. I'm not a GoVirtual user, but I assume that the "pars" file mentioned by its warning message would describe the VM hardware recipe, so that it can replace the original hardware drivers with those which are correct for the VM you are creating.

Grewster wrote:In any case, there seemed to be no problem when creating the VM.

Naturally not. The difficulty when migrating a Windows image is getting it to boot on the target hardware. Imaging the source disk is a necessary step, but rarely a problem.

Grewster wrote:But of course, I have one now, in that I cannot open it.

Hmm. You need to use accurate terminology. "Cannot open" and "Cannot boot" are two quite different error scenarios. I assume your problem is actually the latter.

Grewster wrote:I do not understand what you mean by the search capability of this 'tablet' xp VM. I have not tried to use any search facility (from outside) of the VM, and I cannot access the VM to search within it.

My suggestion to search using Google was in response to your complaints about internal search ignoring two letter words such as XP. I said nothing about searching a VM, searching using a VM, nor did that sentence (in my previous message) mention anything about tablets.

Grewster wrote:Surely there must be other people with xp issues in VB??!

Actually no, not that many. The problems you are likely to encounter when P2Ving XP are quite well understood, as you will find if you Google for "(XP and P2V) site:forums.virtualbox.org". You should also make sure to read the original windows migration wiki, though you should ignore the "step by step" instructions using "dd" - Disk2VHD is easier and a more appropriate suggestion for Windows users.

Hello mpack,
I now undrstand what you meant by the 'search'. I thought that you meant to search within the VM. That was my misunderstanding. I did a search in google site: forums as you suggested. I checked through 8 pages of results, and although I found only virtualbox.org entries, they were better targeted. I also found a post of yours, referencing vdi and vhd, which I have noted. So thanks for that info.

As for the "open the VM" and "boot the VM"; I AM confused.
I don't know if has booted or not. I (probably mistakenly) believed that once I had created the VM, it would open as if it were any (other) application, yet I get taken to the sign-in dialog box, as it used to do when it booted on my old laptop. I cannot get to enter the password; but after some time the dialog box has gone away, and I am left with the "Microsoft PC Tablet" logo (slowly) moving around the screen. I can get no further. It consumes the whole screen with no taskbar, or anything. I have to go to task manager to get out of that screen.
In effect, I don't know if has successfully booted or not. It could well be that that the missing pars file has has subverted a proper boot.

The confusion with the vmdk and vhd files is this. I initially set up a "GoVirtual P2V", which I used for the XP VM. However I also created a disk2vhd file, which I now realise ended up on the same partition as the vmdk. I did not realise it was there, as I had meant for it to go to another empty partition (F:). I even tried it again.
I selected the external xp drive, and entered it into the "vhd file" box, then I entered the empty partition (F:) (again) in the "file to" box.
What I got was a vhd file on the external xp drive! The one I was trying to copy from.

Also it is 44Gb (of data, os etc), but the vhd is 3.03Gb. Would it compress that much, or is it only part of the drive?

So what do I need to do to get this 44Gb external XP hd into a vhd on partition F: - which has 73Gb of empty space?

Cheers

Grewster wrote:I get taken to the sign-in dialog box, as it used to do when it booted on my old laptop. I cannot get to enter the password; but after some time the dialog box has gone away, and I am left with the "Microsoft PC Tablet" logo (slowly) moving around the screen. I can get no further. It consumes the whole screen with no taskbar, or anything. I have to go to task manager to get out of that screen.

Well, at least that's a better description of the current problem. That means you are sitting at the login dialog, which means that you have pretty much completed a successful bootstrap. The OS is essentially fully functional, but it's deliberately blocking access until you log in. Your only problem is that you have the wrong keyboard driver, so you can't type anything. Is the mouse driver also broken? You could try booting into safe mode (hit F8 just as the VM begins to boot), to see if you can replace the keyboard and mouse drivers: it should be a PS/2 keyboard and PS/2(Microsoft) mouse. Failing that you would need to boot the VM from an ISO image of the setup disk and repair the installation.

Grewster wrote:Also it is 44Gb (of data, os etc), but the vhd is 3.03Gb. Would it compress that much, or is it only part of the drive?

I would have thought it unlikely to be that small, though it is possible: Disk2VHD skips unused areas of the disk, so if the disk was largely empty (not counting pagefile and hibernation files), then the VHD could be smaller. It would in any case nearly always be substantially smaller than the logical disk size.

Hi mpack,
I tried the safeboot, but the log on (sign in) dialog box came up, and could not get past it again. I think I need to gwt another image of the drive.
It looks like I need to create a new image of the drive.
The xp drive has 44Gb of data, so it seems that the 3.03 Gb of vhd is too small.

Am I doing the disk2vhd process correctly?
From the (virtualbox) manual, I understood it to say that when I am creating a new vm, I have the choice of either using an existing drive (image) or creating a new one; but when I set up a second (xp) vm to do this, I can't see where I have this option. In other words, can Virtualbox create a disk image itself, or do I have to create the vhd, img or iso file 1st?

Can I use an iso file to set up the vm?

You mentioned that I could need an installation disk, which i don't have. Would a setup disk - an option when creating the vm - do the same job?

Cheers

I said a setup disk, not an installation disk, though in fact the two are equivalent. Just FYI, a setup disk is a CD bought from Microsoft, it often comes bundled with your PC or additional licenses can be bought separately. I get the feeling that you think it means something else.

Yes, you can boot a VM from an ISO image. BTW, these questions are becoming rather basic. I strongly suggest that you take the time to browse the first few chapters of the user manual.

Hi mpack,
I understand what you mean by the setup (installation) disk; i.e being from microsoft. What I was referring to was that when setting up a VM, there is a box which can be ticked to create a setup disk.

"these questions are becoming rather basic. I strongly suggestEATION STEPS" Y that you take the time to browse the first few chapters of the user manual."'

Yes they are getting basic, because it is not producing the reult I need, I AM 'going back to basics' to find out where I am going wrong. I have read the manual up to about P115 - Section 4 I think, and even read where it says I can create an image - as I understand it - when creating the VM.
I will read the wiki "creation steps" you referred to in your post.

TThanks