virtualbox.org

I downloaded the latest version of virtual box and pointed it to a iso of fedora 17.
It does find a disk and when I ask it to use that disk, i get the following error:
(there is plenty of space on the hard drive).

"No usable disks have been found."

At which point, i have to exit the installer.


Should I be installing this in a separate partition, and therefore a new drive letter in windows ?
I would imagine this to be safer anyway ??

Any ideas ?

tia,

Sunny

From the hosts terminal/command window type VBoxManage showvminfo <VM Name> --details and post here. Replace <VM Name> with the actual name of the VM. Use " " if the name has a space in it.

Note if the host is Windows you need to be in the directory that has VBoxManage.exe for the command to work.

Here is the output of the cmd mentioned above.
Strange that I see paths below going to the cygwin install directory ??
I dont remember specifying that anywhere ...


D:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe showvminfo Fedora --details
Name: Fedora
Guest OS: Fedora
UUID: ef6782c9-1648-4e9b-a1be-df857c4addd1
Config file: d:\cygwin\home\sm\VirtualBox VMs\Fedora\Fedora.vbox
Snapshot folder: d:\cygwin\home\sm\VirtualBox VMs\Fedora\Snapshots
Log folder: d:\cygwin\home\sm\VirtualBox VMs\Fedora\Logs
Hardware UUID: ef6782c9-1648-4e9b-a1be-df857c4addd1
Memory size: 768MB
Page Fusion: off
VRAM size: 12MB
CPU exec cap: 100%
HPET: off
Chipset: piix3
Firmware: BIOS
Number of CPUs: 1
Synthetic Cpu: off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: off
PAE: off
Time offset: 0 ms
RTC: UTC
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: off
Nested Paging: on
Large Pages: on
VT-x VPID: on
State: running (since 2012-07-24T20:05:40.274000000)
Monitor count: 1
3D Acceleration: off
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Storage Controller Name (0): IDE Controller
Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Bootable (0): on
Storage Controller Name (1): SATA Controller
Storage Controller Type (1): IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1): 30
Storage Controller Port Count (1): 1
Storage Controller Bootable (1): on
IDE Controller (1, 0): D:\Downloads\iso\Fedora-17-x86_64-Live-Desktop.iso (UUID:
a64a80f5-b142-43a0-a927-e66ed71f7b96)
SATA Controller (0, 0): D:\cygwin\home\sm\VirtualBox VMs\Fedora\Fedora.vdi (U
UID: deb9e4b5-0ef0-4ce8-897f-1fdc19feb145)
NIC 1: MAC: 080027025B9F, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: on, Trace:
off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Prom
isc Policy: deny
NIC 1 Settings: MTU: 0, Socket (send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window (send:64, re
ceive: 64)
NIC 2: disabled
NIC 3: disabled
NIC 4: disabled
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
Pointing Device: USB Tablet
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
Audio: enabled (Driver: DSOUND, Controller: AC97)
Clipboard Mode: Bidirectional
Video mode: 1024x768x32
VRDE: disabled
USB: enabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Available remote USB devices:

<none>

Currently Attached USB Devices:

<none>

Shared folders: <none>

VRDE Connection: not active
Clients so far: 0

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size: 0 MB
OS type: Fedora
Additions run level: 0

Guest Facilities:

Facility "Seamless Mode": not active (last update: 2012/07/24 18:15:33 UTC)
Facility "Graphics Mode": active/running (last update: 2012/07/24 18:15:33 UTC)

Several issues. You are trying to install the 64-bit Fedora but the indications are you selected 32-bit at creation time.
Turn ioapic on and make sure that hardware-v is enabled.

Despite the file location though the syntax is correct as far as drive M/S. I would check the md5 of the ISO first.

Perryg,

I have enabled IO APIC.
What and where is setting hardware-v ??
Also, what gives you the indication that I have selected 32-bit mode at install time ?

The iso runs fine in live mode and i can bring up an xterm, etc.

Thanks for the responses so far,

Sunny

Had you select 64-bit the ioapic would have been enabled by default since that is required. Hardware-v is located in the system acceleration settings.
Do you have it enabled in your PC bios as well?

Yes, I see the Acceleration tab now and both Hardware Virtualization settings are enabled:
Enable VT-x/AMD-V
Enable Nested paging.

So with all of that set and you have verified that hardware-v is enabled in your PC bios, what happens when you try to start the guest?

After all that, I run virtualbox and try to run the Fedora 17 from iso stored on hd, by choosing to install to hd from fedora.
I get a warning screen that

the storage device below may contain data
ATA VBOX HARDDISK
11092.0 MB sda

We do not detect partitions of filesystems on this device


Not sure what this is ??? as my two partitions C and D exist and dont have this size at all.
I select : "Keep any data"
Following which, i get the error "No usable disks have been found"

So, back to square one...

Not really. You are installing to a virtual drive. The drive had been created but has no partition table or format yet.
Its really just a file that is stored on your hard drive.
Linux does not use C or D drive indicators at all and sda wold be the drive name.

You simply need to select to go ahead and install. Fedora will take care of the rest.

One thing though. You will probably need to disable SeLinux to be able to install the guest additions, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I am familiar with the linux drive terminology, so sda is fine, I just didnt set the virtual drive to be that large, so was a bit surprising.
My point is that the fedora installer will _not_ let me proceed and errors out at the same point as when I started this effort. Fedora refuses to install.

It tells me the sda drive has data in it ... wipe out or keep data.
I select keep the data and it errors out.

Maybe I should select the "wipe out data" option, but not sure exactly what it will wipe out. Maybe some other parts of the drive that I could be using for files ??? very unnerving.