Stuck trying to install: Could not read from the boot medium

[SouthPacificCoaster]

I've been trying to get this to work for a few days now, and after searching these forums and grinding multitudes of Google requests, I'm out of ideas. I could really use some help.

(Oh, and before we get started, let me just mention that yes, I do know how to mount a CD in a VM, so that's probably not the issue. Probably.)

Anyway, I have a 2010 MacBook Pro host (64 bit EFI) running 10.6.8 with VirtualBox 4.2.12. I want to make a guest VM running Mac OS X 10.6.8 Server (64 bit), and I have the server install DVD (as it comes from Apple, no hacks installed).

Following the given instructions, I created a Mac OS X system, with a 64-bit version. EFI was turned off, CD/DVD was made the top device for booting, the MBP host's internal DVD drive was connected to the guest's IDE controller, and a 40GB dynamic vdi drive was created on the guest's SATA controller. All other settings are at the defaults. Booting that VM results in the famous "FATAL: Could not read from boot medium! System halted." error message.

Here's what I have checked:

The 10.6.8 Server DVD does indeed boot this MBP.

Mounting a .dmg of the server DVD instead of the DVD itself in the optical drive fails with the 'Could not read from boot medium!' message.

Turning that .dmg into an .iso (using either Disk Utility or hdiutil) fails with the same message.

Creating a .vdi of the server DVD (with VBoxManage convertfromraw) and mounting it to the IDE controller results in the same message. The SATA controller was tried as well with the same results.

Changing the IDE controller type and host I/O cache settings did not help - fails with the same message.

Changing the IDE primary/secondary master/slave settings did not help.

Choosing 'Live CD/DVD' did not help.

Changing the Display settings (amount of mem, 2D or 3D acceleration) did not help.

Turning on EFI boot results in dropping in to the Intel-standard EFI boot screen. However, that EFI cannot read APM or GUID disks with HFS+ file systems, so that route won't get us there.

Moving the CD/DVD device down the boot order list changes the error message to "FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted." as you would expect, so it would appear that the VM is at least seeing some emulated hardware of some kind. (OTOH, since there is no floppy and the vdi is empty, would it be reasonable to expect the boot order to hit the CD/DVD device at some point anyway?)

Trying a Snow Leopard _client_ boot DVD (confirmed that it boots the MBP on its own) did not help.

Trying a Mountain Lion 10.8.0 client boot DVD (as there is no separate server version of 10.8.0, and it's confirmed that the disc boots the MBP on its own) did not help.

Downgrading VB to 4.1.23 and also 4.1.26 did not help. (The VB uninstaller scripts were used to do this.)

Trying VB 4.2.12 on a different host machine (2012 Mac Mini running 10.8.3) with a .dmg of the 10.6.0 Server mounted on the guest's IDE controller (since there's no physical DVD drive) results in the same error messages. Same problem if a 10.8.3 .dmg is tried as a guest OS.

And, just for completeness, here's the section of the log where the VM falls over:

Code: Select all

00:00:01.639327 Changing the VM state from 'POWERING_ON' to 'RUNNING'.
00:00:01.651331 Guest Log: BIOS: VirtualBox 4.2.12
00:00:01.651847 PIT: mode=2 count=0x10000 (65536) - 18.20 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:01.679654 Display::handleDisplayResize(): uScreenId = 0, pvVRAM=00000000 w=720 h=400 bpp=0 cbLine=0x0, flags=0x1
00:00:01.707789 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: RESET, DevSel=0 AIOIf=0 CmdIf0=0x00 (-1 usec ago) CmdIf1=0x00 (-1 usec ago)
00:00:01.707858 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: finished processing RESET
00:00:01.761368 AHCI#0: Reset the HBA
00:00:01.761555 AHCI#0: Port 0 reset
00:00:01.763046 Guest Log: BIOS: AHCI 0-P#0: PCHS=16383/16/63 LCHS=1024/255/63 83886080 sectors
00:00:01.763152 PIT: mode=2 count=0x48d3 (18643) - 64.00 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:01.771297 Display::handleDisplayResize(): uScreenId = 0, pvVRAM=1bc1d000 w=640 h=480 bpp=32 cbLine=0xA00, flags=0x1
00:00:01.990838 2D video acceleration is disabled.
00:00:04.240461 Display::handleDisplayResize(): uScreenId = 0, pvVRAM=00000000 w=720 h=400 bpp=0 cbLine=0x0, flags=0x1
00:00:04.251810 PIT: mode=2 count=0x10000 (65536) - 18.20 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:04.252692 Guest Log: BIOS: Boot : bseqnr=1, bootseq=0003
00:00:04.253786 Guest Log: BIOS: CDROM boot failure code : 0005
00:00:04.254424 Guest Log: BIOS: Boot from CD-ROM failed
00:00:04.259779 Guest Log: Could not read from the boot medium! System halted.

I have been unable to find any infomation as to what condition 'CDROM boot failure code : 0005' actually refers to.

What needs to be done to get a Mac host to boot a Mac guest OS install disc? Anyone? Beuller?

Thanks for any suggestions or advice.

-Tom

[mpack]

I don't know what to tell you. In the five years I've been visiting this site, "No bootable medium" has always meant exactly what it said. In the case of a Mac host others have reported problems accessing the physical host drive. Making a .dmg or .iso should remove that from the equation (either one is just as good, the only difference is that .dmg isn't portable to non-Apple).

So, if your issue is none of the above then my attention would turn to the disk itself. I would suggest proving that the disk is bootable, e.g. by booting a PC with it.

[SouthPacificCoaster]

Thanks for the reply, mpack. It's the "Could not read from boot medium" message that has me stumped. Trying different disks (which definitely boot the MBP) both as physical DVDs and as disk images all lead to the same issue. When using the physical DVD, the optical drive spins up when the VM boots, but then the failure message appears. So, something is at least trying to read the medium and failing.

I've double-checked that the SL server DVD is indeed bootable on the MBP. I realize that the VM's virtualized 'hardware' is different, but I don't know how to examine or alter that other than through the VB app (or zapping the .vbox file, which seems to be all that the VB app actually does).

Somewhere in the forums I read of someone having success with 4.1.16 (admittedly for a different boot issue), so I tried that too. No luck.

I'll try a few more wild guesses soon, such as using an external FireWire optical drive, or maybe converting the whole disk image to NTFS instead of HFS+...

-Tom

[noteirak]

Have you tryed using an ISO that is found on Internet and is bootable for sure, like a linux distro? You would check the MD5/SHA1 of the file after download, and it matches, and you can boot, it would definitly be an issue with your physical DVD player.

[SouthPacificCoaster]

Hi, noteirak. I tried your suggestion of grabbing a Linux distro (Debian, in my case) and it mounted and booted fine as a guest OS. (Something stalled later on during installation, but that's a lot farther than things got with a 10.6.0 guest disk.)

But that got me to wondering. The SLServer disk image I tried before came from Apple (I'm a developer, so these images are available and legal to use). On a whim, I tried imaging the SLServer plysical boot disc into a CD/DVD master disc image (.cdr). And - it worked! Installed, booted, everything.

So, something is different from the SLServer image from Apple. I burned a physical disc of that one, and it would boot the host machine just fine, but not boot as a guest OS ('Could not read..."). Then things get weirder - making a disc image from that DVD resulted in an image which will boot as a guest OS. ---?!?!?

In other words:
- The SLServer disc image from Apple won't boot as a guest OS.
- Burning that disc image to a physical DVD results in a DVD which will boot the host, but will not boot as a guest.
- Making a disc image from that physical DVD results in a disc image which will boot as a guest! This image should be the same as the one I started with, but clearly something is different.

As odd as this behavior seems, this one is solved.

Thanks, all.

-Tom

[noteirak]

Possible a protection that prevents it from being installed in a VM maybe.

[loukingjr]

just a thought, the lens of the cd/dvd could be slightly dirty. which could cause a disk to intermittently boot or not. I have had similar issues with perfectly good discs in a drive. especially if one smokes.

[mpack]

Ah sorry, I was thinking of the "No bootable medium found" error.

"Could not read from boot medium" is of course a disk I/O error. Do I understand that you were supplied with both a physical DVD and an image? You are saying that the official image fails, and the physical DVD fails, but if you make your own image of the physical DVD then that works? Very strange if so.

I agree with Noteirak that copy protection sounds like it's the most likely explanation. Perhaps enabling "Passthrough" in the VM CD/DVD settings would have allowed it to use the physical DVD. I don't know enough about DMG to comment on what they might have done there.

It's a pretty ineffective copy protection though, if it can be bypassed by making your own DVD image!

[loukingjr]

Ah sorry, I was thinking of the "No bootable medium found" error.

"Could not read from boot medium" is of course a disk I/O error. Do I understand that you were supplied with both a physical DVD and an image? You are saying that the official image fails, and the physical DVD fails, but if you make your own image of the physical DVD then that works? Very strange if so.

I agree with Noteirak that copy protection sounds like it's the most likely explanation. Perhaps enabling "Passthrough" in the VM CD/DVD settings would have allowed it to use the physical DVD. I don't know enough about DMG to comment on what they might have done there.

It's a pretty ineffective copy protection though, if it can be bypassed by making your own DVD image!

I'm fairly certain Apple doesn't copy protect their system disks and as mentioned, it would be "ineffective" and I'm guessing Apple could come up with a better scheme if they wanted.

[rpmurray]

Actually you can purchase (not online, you need to call via phone) Snow Leopard Server directly from Apple for just $20. And several folks that have done that have told the Apple sales reps that they plan to use it to create a VM and Apple didn't get bent all out of shape about it.