virtualbox.org

Hello,

I managed to start a vm with windows XP from a VMDK image, but the mouse and keyboard doesn't work.

I tried to run a "repair install" using the CD instalation but it doesn't show the "repair" option, only the reinstallation which I don't want to do since I have an oracle installation on this vm.

Does anybody have any suggestions for me?

Note: The Windows XP CD installation I'm using is not the same used to install at VMWare and I don't have this one.

Thanks in advance.

If this vmdk was built on VMware and includes the VMware tools (which contain VMware specific keyboard and mouse drivers) you need to find a way to remove/uninstall the VMware tools.
Did you try to start the XP guest in safe mode (F8 key at the first start screen of XP)?

Thanks for the answer Martin,

The keyboard and mouse doesn't work in safe mode too.

I have no knowledge on VMWare, this VM wasn't built by me, so I have to research about these VMWare Tools.

Thanks

Hello Martin,

I managed to remove VMWare Tools from the VM, but the keyboard and mouse still doesn't work.

So I boot the VM in VMWare Player again just to disable login prompt. I though the windows will install keyboard and mouse if it logs in with administrator, but no way...

This may or may not have any relation to your problem, but I had an identical symptom in the past several days and found the fix for mine.

I have almost a dozen VMs on this host, with various o/s on them (all 32-bit, as is the host): Debian, Xubuntu, WinXP, and Win2K. All of the VMs were created with the VT-X option enabled, but that feature was disabled in the BIOS of the host, unbeknownst to me.

I then needed to install a 64-bit version of Xubuntu as a test system to try some experimental code without risk to my production systems, and at that point discovered that VT-X was not enabled in the BIOS. I enabled it, installed the 64-bit VM, and did the testing successfully.

However when next I tried to use one of the other VMs (most of which reside in "saved" state when not actually in use) I found that neither the keyboard nor the mouse had any effect. When I attempted to verify that this was true for all of them, I got an error message that advised me to power off the machine rather than continue attempting to run it. With the VM powered off, I was able to clear the system -> acceleration settings to "disabled." After doing that, the VM ran normally when re-started.

I recall seeing somewhere in the docs that these settings must not be changed for a Windows VM after its original installation. However I seem to have encountered a special case in which the "change" actually happened when I enabled the feature in BIOS, and changing the setting in vbox restored the conditions in effect when the machine was created.

I then discarded the saved state for each VM in turn, cleared the VT-X and associated settings, verified that this restored the VM to normal operation, and saved its state anew to avoid the start-up delay when using it.

As I said, this may have no relation at all to your VMDK installation, but it might be worth a try...

Thanks @JKyleOKC,

But the problem was solved. I just reestart the VM in VirtualBox using automatic admin login, this time windows could install the drivers for mouse and keyboard and now it works.

Thanks!

Thanks Jim Kyle -- I disabled one of the CPU settings and that fixed my problem. Now the keyboard is working!

ktreese

Could you be so kind to explain which CPU setting did you change.

I am facing similar problem but can't figure out what the reason is.

Thanks