virtualbox.org

Hello,

I am using Virtual Box 4.2.16 r86992 with a Windows 8 64 bit host and Windows 7 32 bit guest. I got the guest to install and open. I wanted to shut the guest down, so I clicked Start -> Shut Down. The window with the guest in it closed. I wanted to go back into it, so I clicked start, and VirtualBox reinstalled Windows 7. The boot order was CD / DVD then hard drive. I tried putting the hard drive first, and got the "Could not read from boot medium" message. Instead of using Windows 7's shut down, was I supposed to close the window and save its state?


Thanks,

Dotty

Virtual machines are just like physical ones. If you leave the installation disk in the drive, it will try to do the installation again!

It should not matter whether you shutdown the vm or save it. Save is like using hibernate on a physical machine - it starts faster because it doesn't need to do a cold boot.

If the install worked properly, the vm should boot up from the virtual disk.