virtualbox.org

I just switched from a PC to a mac. I made a .VHD file from my windows operating system on my old Dell laptop. I would now like to boot this using Virtual Box to access my old system. When I attempt to do this I get an error message that says: "operating system missing"

Is this possible to fix?

If so how?

I did notice that the .vhd file is significantly smaller (total file size) than the total size of the data on the drive I converted to a .vhd - is that normal?

Thanks.

If the VHD does not contain a complete operating system, then no, it will probably not be possible to fix it. How was this VHD created?

Also note that Win7 requires reactivation when moved to new hardware, which includes VMs.

I created it with a tool called "disk2vhd" that a friend directed me to download from microsoft's website. I selected my OS partition as the source.

Another question... assuming this file is useless and will never work we are now making a .vmx file using VMWare vConverter Standalone - is that going to work any better? The source is "powered on machine" the local machine.

With the VMWare file it was closer. It started to load but then said repair is recommended. Selecting that option says "insert your windows CD and reboot" - I don't know how to do that on a virtual machine so that's not going to work. If I said start windows normally it would show the normal screen when windows 7 is loading but then it would just crash and restart and suggest the repair again. Can this be fixed?

The error given when it asks for the windows CD is:

"Status OxC0000225

Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible."

You are having 2 different issues :

1. with the disk2vhd tool, you only selected your system partition, but not your boot partition. Windows 7 has 2 partitions and both require to be present.
2. The "device is inaccessible" issue comes from the fact that Windows 7 is expecting a specific hardware with specific ids at a specific "place" in your system, which are not anymore since you are running your system in a virtualized environement.

You should look up some P2V guides on internet about how to do this : these are standart issues that needs to be resolved, regardless of the Virtualisation platform.

noteirak wrote:You are having 2 different issues :

1. with the disk2vhd tool, you only selected your system partition, but not your boot partition. Windows 7 has 2 partitions and both require to be present.

Selecting the boot partition wasn't an option. It didn't let me choose it. If you count the boot partition there are three partitions on that drive: OS, Recovery and Boot. Only OS and Recovery were show as options to make a file from.

2. The "device is inaccessible" issue comes from the fact that Windows 7 is expecting a specific hardware with specific ids at a specific "place" in your system, which are not anymore since you are running your system in a virtualized environement.

You should look up some P2V guides on internet about how to do this : these are standart issues that needs to be resolved, regardless of the Virtualisation platform.

I have the whole actual physical hard drive in a USB enclosure including the Boot partition, the OS Partition and the Recovery partition (which I think is like a windows system CD). Is it possible to just boot that in a virtualized environment?

Thanks.

cibr wrote:Selecting the boot partition wasn't an option. It didn't let me choose it. If you count the boot partition there are three partitions on that drive: OS, Recovery and Boot. Only OS and Recovery were show as options to make a file from.

I can only say that you might need a better tool for the job then. If you don't mind making your hands dirty with some reading and command line commands, you should look into WinPE (available from the Windows 7 ADK) and the VIM format. To fix the boot, you can use bootfix or fixmbr (cannot remember which one it is)

cibr wrote:I have the whole actual physical hard drive in a USB enclosure including the Boot partition, the OS Partition and the Recovery partition (which I think is like a windows system CD). Is it possible to just boot that in a virtualized environment?

Yes you can, but it won't spare you from the fact you are actually running your Windows installation on another "hardware". P2V consideration apply here too.
To fix your "device is inaccessible" issue, possibly using bootfix or fixmbr from a WinPE/Windows 7 boot disc could solve it.

Disk2VHD should do a perfectly adequate job. It doesn't offer choices as to which partitions to back up because AFAIK it only does whole disks. My "what tool" question was intended to uncover whether you used Disk2VHD or Windows Backup, as the latter does not produce bootable images.

Are you sure you made an image of the primary disk on the original PC? It's the primary disk that has the early boot code, so if you e.g. had that on an SSD then an image of the hdd will not produce a bootable image.

Another thing that can happen is that imaging changes the UUID of the disk, causing the boot manager to fail to find the system partition by UUID. However the error message "Missing operating system" is I believe more low level than that - it comes from the BIOS and means ISTR that an MBR was found, but no bootable partition.

Then that should work perfectly for the image creation

mpack wrote:Disk2VHD should do a perfectly adequate job. It doesn't offer choices as to which partitions to back up because AFAIK it only does whole disks. My "what tool" question was intended to uncover whether you used Disk2VHD or Windows Backup, as the latter does not produce bootable images.

Are you sure you made an image of the primary disk on the original PC? It's the primary disk that has the early boot code, so if you e.g. had that on an SSD then an image of the hdd will not produce a bootable image.

Another thing that can happen is that imaging changes the UUID of the disk, causing the boot manager to fail to find the system partition by UUID. However the error message "Missing operating system" is I believe more low level than that - it comes from the BIOS and means ISTR that an MBR was found, but no bootable partition.

I am positive it asked me which partition but I will try it again and try to screen shot it for you. Yes I am sure it is the original hard drive and not an image. It is absolutely the exact original hard driv. It is an SSD though - why should that matter? I have to do something special for SSD drives?

I've just downloaded disk2vhd, it does ask for the partitions. So you should select all of them.
SSD makes it no different, you don't need anything special.

If you did select ALL the partitions in your image, but it still doesn't work, then fix your boot manager like I've explained above.

noteirak wrote:I've just downloaded disk2vhd, it does ask for the partitions. So you should select all of them.
SSD makes it no different, you don't need anything special.

If you did select ALL the partitions in your image, but it still doesn't work, then fix your boot manager like I've explained above.

I'm going to rebuild the imagine selecting all partitions but I am wondering is this fixmbr something I run on windows or on mac? I am not sure how I can use the windows 7 system disk to fix anything since I don't have a CD/DVD drive on my computer. What is the process for trying to boot the hard drive as it is in virtual box without trying to make an image? I don't think the MBR is messed up on the actual hard drive because I have not done anything to the original hard drive other than to make images and save them to the desktop.

As for the vmware one maybe that is going to work but I don't how to repair it because my computer doesn't have a DVD drive and the only windows computer I've got lying around also does not have one.

Thanks for all the help.

noteirak wrote:The "device is inaccessible" issue comes from the fact that Windows 7 is expecting a specific hardware with specific ids at a specific "place" in your system, which are not anymore since you are running your system in a virtualized environement.

The only way to fix this is using the command to fix the boot manager from a windows 7 cd or from windows PE, after some customization.
You need to run it in the guest (your windows 7).
If you are not sure how to do this, you can find lots of information on Microsoft Technet.

And your MBR is not messed up, the boot loader simply cannot find the location of the windows disk anymore, since the IDs and the disk position has changed. You need to update it (using the command)

noteirak wrote:

noteirak wrote:The "device is inaccessible" issue comes from the fact that Windows 7 is expecting a specific hardware with specific ids at a specific "place" in your system, which are not anymore since you are running your system in a virtualized environement.

The only way to fix this is using the command to fix the boot manager from a windows 7 cd or from windows PE, after some customization.
You need to run it in the guest (your windows 7).
If you are not sure how to do this, you can find lots of information on Microsoft Technet.

Sorry i am still totally confused here. I have to plug this hard drive into a windows computer and run something on it and then recreate the image either in the vmware or the vhd format? Or I need to run this command on one of the images?

And your MBR is not messed up, the boot loader simply cannot find the location of the windows disk anymore, since the IDs and the disk position has changed. You need to update it (using the command)

How has it changed? I haven't done anything to it?

Sorry i am still totally confused here. I have to plug this hard drive into a windows computer and run something on it and then recreate the image either in the vmware or the vhd format? Or I need to run this command on one of the images?

This is going far behond the support of this forum (being Virtualbox support) and I would advice you to google the terms I gave you, you will end up on a lot of information to make it work. But what you are looking for is an ISO that you will boot in your VM.

How has it changed? I haven't done anything to it?

It didn't change, the address reccorded in the boot data is simply no more valid and needs to be updated. Again, this goes more far than Virtualbox, you'll find more info on google or the like.