Kernel problem after upgrade

[Chris429]

A couple months ago I updated my version of VirtualBox, and since then it has not worked.

My windows 7 host is 64 bit, and I have tried both 64bit and 32bit guests, neither work.

I have tried many distributions of Linux guests, all of them stop when it starts to load the main kernel.

Edit 1:
I should also note that I have uninstalled, reinstalled, and repaired dozens of times using both current and old versions of VBox. Also, I have used CCleaner to clean the registry after uninstalls.

Thank you in advance for your support.

[mpack]

Using CCleaner may do more harm than good. Why would it know what registry keys are important?

Please try to resist magic incantations, e.g. running CCleaner, uninstalling and installing the software, etc. In order to solve your problem I often have to fill in missing information by imagining what you've done, and that gets harder if you do random but potentially damaging things.

First step: take a look at any error message and symptoms and tell me what they are! All you've said so far is "not worked", "neither work", "stops". I need something more precise than that.

Also, lets pick one case to work on, not jump about. Since you tell me nothing much about the guest you've provided a log file for (though I see it's called "Deb2"), it's hard to know how to apply it. I will note however that you've only given the guest 384MB RAM, which is rather teeny by modern standards, especially if the guest is a RAM hungry 64bit OS. I also see that IOAPIC is disabled, which would be unusual for a modern Linux guest.

ps. I just noticed this host doesn't support VT-x. That means that 64bit guests will never work (neither will Win8).

[Chris429]

Thank you.

Can you elaborate on the VT-x? I have been able to run many versions of Linux guests on this machine in the past.

The Guest OS that I am trying to run is Trisquel_6.0_i686.iso (the newest version of Trisquel, a popular Debian based OS).

I am able to run the same iso file in VMware, no problem.

I just tried again with Virtualbox, this time I gave it 1gb of ram, still it did not work.

I appreciate your time and effort helping me with this.

[Perryg]

The screen shot is telling you what you need to do. enable pae in the processor section of the guest settings and it should work.

[Chris429]

The screen shot is telling you what you need to do. enable pae in the processor section of the guest settings and it should work.

Thank you.

Interesting... I could have sworn that I tried that already. Also, I wonder why I have to make this change manually, in the past all of my distros have worked "out-of-the-box"

Although it is working now, it is taking excessively longer than it used to.

I wonder why was PAE not enabled by default?

I really believe it is a problem with windows holding onto old settings from a previous installation. However, I don't know enough about windows, or virtualbox to investigate my hunch

[Chris429]

ps. I just noticed this host doesn't support VT-x. That means that 64bit guests will never work (neither will Win8).

Thank you.

This is a problem because I have run 64bit guests in the past. I found this article:
mathy.vanvoorden.be/blog/2010/01/enable-vt-x-on-dell-laptop/
which I think *might* be my problem. The only difference is that VT-x worked in the past, I am sure of it.

By the way, using either VMWare or Virtualbox I can now host 32bit linux guests. So that is a success. However I am still motivated to figure out how to run 64bit guests again.

[Perryg]

HWACCM: No VT-x or AMD-V CPU extension found. Reason VERR_VMX_NO_VMX
The p7450 cpu does not support vt-x which is a requirement for 64-bit guests.
http://ark.intel.com/products/36734/

[mpack]

This is a problem because I have run 64bit guests in the past. ... The only difference is that VT-x worked in the past, I am sure of it.

Your host's CPU does not have the VT-x feature, so you certainly never ran a 64bit guest OS on this PC before - not with VirtualBox anyway.

I found this article: mathy.vanvoorden.be/blog/2010/01/enable-vt-x-on-dell-laptop/

Even when host CPUs do have the feature it is often disabled by default in the host BIOS, where it needs to be enabled before it can be used by apps such as VBox. Enabling it in your Dell BIOS will be what the blog is about. The blog can't help if the CPU doesn't have the VT-x feature at all, which I'm afraid to say is your position.

No matter. You can still install 32bit OS's, and personally with a 4GB host I can't imagine why you'd want to install anything else.