One mistake and dead. Won't load after wrong shutdown

[noclueboo]

I just loaded up the VM and was doing first machine. Then I shut it down wrong and now it freezes when I attempt to load it which I originally loaded with Mepis OS.

I was trying to use the Mepis in the VM on my windows xp system. It does load the start page for mepis but then freezes and shows a screen that says something is wrong.

I figured to start over since I didn't know how to correct the problem. So I removed Oracle from computer and then reinstalled it. But the same thing happened as if I had not ever removed it.

Oh. When I first did the installation Mepis seemed to be frozen in the virtual window and then I realized that the default amount of ram was too low (my idiot analysis) so I changed it up to 256 and that left 256 for XP. But this did not help and then I did the wrong shutdown.

I have the log I believe.

Is there help? Or should I just forget computing and go back to mating pedigeed cockroaches for Trade shows?
If there is person or alien out there who can answer the question please feel free. Thanks.

Jack

[Perryg]

Post the guests log file ( as an attachment )

[noclueboo]

Okay. Thanks. I couldn't find my way back to this forum so it took awhile. The two zipped logs are attached.

Jack

[Perryg]

00:00:00.515749 Host RAM: 478MB total, 287MB available
00:00:00.695074 RamSize <integer> = 0x0000000010000000 (268 435 456, 256 MB)
00:01:53.953336 VM: Raising runtime error 'HostMemoryLow' (fFlags=0x2)

You don't have enough memory to run a guest.

[rpmurray]

More of the same.

00:01:53.974176 Console: VM runtime error: fatal=false, errorID=HostMemoryLow message="Unable to allocate and lock memory. The virtual machine will be paused. Please close applications to free up memory or close the VM"

[noclueboo]

Thanks.

Does this mean my 512 ram on XP is not enough? I allocated half to the Virtual window.

And since I reloaded the Virtual Box shouldn't that have cleared the error messages allowing me to start anew?

[mpack]

Let's not beat about the bush: that host has barely enough RAM to run one instance of XP, never mind two. VM is extremely hungry for all kinds of resources, if you want to use it then you should IMHO consider a host upgrade. Min spec you should consider is dual core with 4GB RAM, 512GB hdd, supporting VT-x. XP as a host OS is fine, in fact XP will work great on such a spec. Win7-64 would be my next choice, this is probably best if you are mainly interested in 64bit VMs.

[noclueboo]

Thanks. It looks like I am in over my head. I just wanted to try out mepis and others without running them from a disc.

I had heard about a virtual machine so.. But I am not that technically knowledgable about this to do it.

Thanks for the replies guys!

Jack

[mpack]

That's a shame. It's really not that hard if you take it slow to start with. Couldn't you just get some more RAM for your PC? A couple of GB should make it zip along and is a good idea all by itself - and then you could certainly afford 512MB for an XP VM. I'm not sure about performance though, if your CPU is an older single core thing. Ideally you want dual core, so the host can work smoothly on its own core regardless of what the VM does. If you don't have that then the VM will still run, but then of course any heavy apps run inside the guest will impact the host too.

I found a nice 2005 review of your CPU here Hardware Secrets: AMD Sempron 3400+ Review. Looks like it is single core. Still, you might still try, it costs you nothing but a little time.

[noclueboo]

Thanks for the advice mpack. I'll look at that link and see about the upgrades.

Maybe I will check about new computer as this is certainly getting outdated. (I don't like using the word old negatively as it only contributes to the bullshit marketing of Madison Avenue.)

[mpack]

A PC is only ever old with respect to the apps you want to run on it. E.g. you can't play a Blu-ray in a CD drive, but if you don't need to then who cares? You can do VM in an old single core PC with limited RAM, disk space and no VT-x, but the possibilities will be limited and performance often poor. There's just no point in sugarcoating that.