Bizarre Windows 7 Host problems

[djorn]

Hello,

I have been banging my head against a wall for the past day or two trying to figure this one out.

I have been using virtual box recreationally over the past few years and have been using it more often to try out different linux distro's before making the the final plunge (not a fan of dual booting). I put the host to sleep while a guest O.S. was running one night and the next morning discovered that windows had a BSoD at some point and shut down. At this point I wasn't able to restart any of my guests so I tried reinstalling, updating windows 7, reinstalling, installing an old version. I don't really remember to much I just grinded away on it, searching google and the forums to no avail.

What happens now:

Start virtual box manager
click new
name:test
click next
click next (default ram is 192 MB)
choose do not add virtual hard drive (making a hard drive produces the same error)
click create, continue

Error -> Failed to open a session for the virtual machine test.

Details can be found in the attached log files in my .virtualbox folder

I found this post but deleting the .virtualbox folder doesn't seem to help.

(edit: I put the full link in now that I have permissions)
(edit 2: Noticed a few typos)

[mpack]

Unfortunately, not much of the information provided is the most useful. See Minimum information needed for assistance.

[djorn]

Unfortunately, not much of the information provided is the most useful. See (Linking disabled for new users)Minimum information needed for assistance(/link).

I have read this post prior to posting. This is about as much information as I have. The lack of available information is why I have been having so much trouble.

After the error in my OP the 'test' guest shows up in the background but gets deleted after you close the error and there is no 'test' folder in the VM guest directory. So I don't have access to the 'test' guest log.

Not sure where this error gets logged:

Code: Select all

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine test.

Failed to assign the machine to the session (Unknown Status 0x80004005).

Result Code: VBOX_E_VM_ERROR (0x80BB0003)
Component: Machine
Interface: IMachine {22781af3-1c96-4126-9edf-67a020e0e858}
Callee RC: E_FAIL (0x80004005)

Google hasn't been much help. This is the first time I haven't been able to find the answer to a technical question on my own.

I may have to go thermal nuclear and just reformat the host as I don't really have much more then another day or two left to muck about with it.

Thanks for taking a look.

(This maybe the final nudge I needed to finally make the permanent switch to linux that I have been talking about for years, so maybe this is a good thing after all. )

[mpack]

If the VM made any attempt to start at all, then a VM log file was created, and can be grabbed as described in the link I gave you. You can also surely find it possible to provide host and guest version information.

[djorn]

If the VM made any attempt to start at all, *snip*

The vm never gets made.

As I said before, I have read the link you included before posting my OP. There is no new guest file in the ~/path/to/VMs/ folder. The error occurs while the guest is being created.

I just tried removing 'delete' permissions to that folder to see what would happen. The GUI manager gives me another error about the file not existing but creates a 'test' guest folder (attached) that includes a .vbox and .vbox-tmp file but no logs are created.

Also when you try to create a VM after getting the error it says that the file already exists when you can see plainly that it does not. You can see the folder getting created and deleted during the process described in the OP. Closing and Reopening the VM Manager fixes the issue. I am guessing it has to do with caching and RAM or something of that nature (things that go over my head).

[mpack]

It sounds like the VirtualBox installation has been hosed. You need to uninstall completely, including manually deleting the "c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox" folder. Then make sure you have full admin rights while you install VirtualBox again. If that doesn't work then the MSI parts of your hosts registry has been hosed, and fixing that will be another story.

[djorn]

*snip* ...If that doesn't work then the MSI parts of your hosts registry has been hosed, and fixing that will be another story.

That is what I am afraid of. I have booted into ubuntu via liveusb and have been able to access my vm's. It is nice to know I can get to them if I need them in a pinch. Could you point me in the right direction to diagnose my registry or if there is something in particular I should look at first?

As I said before I may just resinstall windows >_< or switch to linux .

Thanks for your help.

[mpack]

Sorry, I don't "do" Windows registry. Did you try simply uninstalling as I first suggested?

[djorn]

Well I don't do windows registry either. Since you were talking about the MSI parts of my host's registry I assumed you might be able to point me in the right direction but I guess not. As I said in my OP I have reinstalled several times. Just to humor you, I even re-downloaded the installer - no dice.

I have googled this issue into the ground; which is why I created this thread in the first place . Now the next person who runs into this problem might find this thread and know that all hope is lost .

Hopefully this is an isolated incident. A number of years ago, I accidentally shorted my motherboard and rebooted to find that my copy of windows xp home had spontaneously upgraded to windows xp pro. I imagine stranger things have happened in computing world and this maybe one of them. Now excuse me while I go and nuke my computer problems away.