Problem Making Win98 Guest

[BlacKnightZero]

I was trying to make a Windows 98 Virtual PC in order to play some old games that don't work on my computer anymore, but I encountered some problems. My PC's specs are as follows:

OS Name: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Version: 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
System Manufacturer: Alienware
System Model: Alienware X51 R2
System Type: x64-based PC
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3401 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM): 8.00 GB

I made a video showing what happened: www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=u1l4hHnktMA

[dlharper]

The virtual machine has not been created at all here.

The appearance of the second VirtualBox Manager window is not normal. Has this happened every time you have tried to create a virtual machine, or is it a one-off?

You do not appear to have any other virtual machines, so it might be simplest to delete it. The reinstall VirtualBox and try again.

BTW, in your Virtual Machine you have inserted the boot disk into floppy drive B:. It will not boot from there. Use the drive that already exists - this will be drive A:. This is not the source of your current problem, though.

[mpack]

Actually, I didn't see a boot disk being inserted at all. I see the "choose disk" dialog being opened and closed with no selection. It's so teeny and fuzzy that it's hard to tell. You need a Win98SE setup cd (or floppy set, but a CD is better) if you want to install the OS.

The video is all well and good, but here we prefer the thousand words. See Minimum information needed for assistance.

[dlharper]

I think a boot floopy has been inserted. The video only shows the VirtualBox window, and has left out the Explorer window that would have been open during browsing. (The video flickers slightly at that point.) Also you can see that, whereas the first floppy is clearly marked "Empty", the second is <something>.img, and the <something> could easily begin with a "W".

However, his machine has not got as far as being created, let alone failing to boot. The current problem doesn't lie there. There might not even be a log file for him to send.

[FrodoHobbits]

Why do you add another floppy controller and attach the image to this drive ?

[BlacKnightZero]

The appearance of the second VirtualBox Manager window is not normal. Has this happened every time you have tried to create a virtual machine, or is it a one-off?

It has happened every time I have made a new virtual machine (I've tried about 5 times now).

BTW, in your Virtual Machine you have inserted the boot disk into floppy drive B:. It will not boot from there. Use the drive that already exists - this will be drive A:. This is not the source of your current problem, though.

When I tried to change the floppy disk that already exists, I didn't see the same options that the person showed in the tutorial I watched (there was no option to choose a boot disk from what I saw). I went to make a new floppy drive because it seemed like the most obvious solution (I just now looked, and I feel stupid for not seeing it before).

Actually, I didn't see a boot disk being inserted at all. I see the "choose disk" dialog being opened and closed with no selection. It's so teeny and fuzzy that it's hard to tell. You need a Win98SE setup cd (or floppy set, but a CD is better) if you want to install the OS.

I'm sorry, my screencap software must have glitched (it's happened before) but I do have a floppy iso on my hard drive, and that's what I chose.

...his machine has not got as far as being created, let alone failing to boot. The current problem doesn't lie there. There might not even be a log file for him to send.

That is correct, I checked the log, and it just says: No log files found.

The video is all well and good, but here we prefer the thousand words.

My apologies, here is the what I did, all in words:
After installing, I made a new Windows 98 Virtual Machine (or I thought I did) by clicking new.
The following are the options I chose:
Memory size: 128 MB
Create a virtual hard drive now => VDI => Dynamically allocated => 4GB

Then I right clicked on the device and went to settings and I made sure of the following:
Video Memory was set to 24
Enable 2D and 3D Acceleration were both enabled
Sound blaster 16 was chosen

You do not appear to have any other virtual machines, so it might be simplest to delete it. The reinstall VirtualBox and try again.

I reinstalled it and the problem is gone, but I also noticed in my settings that VirtualBox detected some invalid settings (not enough video memory) which might have been the solution to the problem the whole time.

[BlacKnightZero]

I found the problem. The problem was that I was previously trying to run VirtualBox after installing it on an External Hard Drive. I'm probably an idiot for not knowing that it wouldn't work like that.

[socratis]

Some times I've been regarded as asking too many questions, just because I have a feeling that some vital detail is missing. You just confirmed my gut feeling .

Thank you for posting the troubleshooting and the solution.