Can't create new machines on clean install

[ramk13]

Quick background: I'm running a Win 7 Pro Host originally on VirtualBox 4.2x. I used VBoxVMService to automatically start the VM and sleep it on host shutdown. I tried to resize a working Win Server 2012 guest VHD using vboxmanage -modifyhd (after shutting down the VM) and ended up with an unbootable installation. That was disappointing, since it looks like I lost the installation, but I have some old backups, so no big loss. I tried to create a new vm to run a gparted live iso to try to recover files from the corrupted VHD and that's where the trouble started or at least where I noticed it. At this point, no matter what I've tried I cannot create a new VM of any type in the VirtualBox manager nor can I run my old VM from backup. The primary error that I see when trying to create a new machine is:

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Failed to open a session for the virtual machine test.

Failed to assign the machine to the session (E_FAIL).

Result Code: VBOX_E_VM_ERROR (0x80BB0003)
Component: Machine
Interface: IMachine {480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048}
Callee RC: E_FAIL (0x80004005)

The error is the same even I try to create the machine without a virtual hard drive of any format. I also can't run my old VM from backup. The backup has a snapshot, and it was created in 4.2x. I add it to VirtualBox through Machine...Add, and it appears to show up fine. But if I hit settings, I get this error and a dialog for settings with no values. Another odd thing is that the cancel button doesn't work in that dialog. I have to use the X in the corner of the window:

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Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Server 2012.

Failed to assign the machine to the session (E_FAIL).

Result Code: VBOX_E_VM_ERROR (0x80BB0003)
Component: Machine
Interface: IMachine {480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048}
Callee RC: E_FAIL (0x80004005)

If I try to start that old machine, it hangs on a dialog that says "Starting VM" "Creating process for virtual machine "Server 2012" (Gui/Qt) ... (1/2)" The VM doesn't appear to be running as I saw in this thread. From that point I can't completely kill all VirtualBox processes unless I restart.

I tried just about everything that I could find by googling as a solution to the problem. This includes disabling and then deleting the VBoxVMService, upgrading to the most recent 4.3, uninstalling (always restarting after each uninstall) and then reinstalling, uninstalling and then deleting .VirtualBox, the VirtualBox PRogram Files folder (under Oracle), and the VirtualBox VMs folder, uninstalling and deleting the mentioned folders plus deleting every Key with 'virtualbox' from the registry, and downgrading to 4.2.24.Always restarting after each uninstall/delete. My account is an admin, but I also tried run as administrator when installing, There don't appear to be relevant settings for me to change within VirtualBox since I can't even create a VM. At this point I'm at a loss.

The problems are similar to the ones described in other threads (can't link since I'm new), but there's no confirmed resolution there, and I tried the advice.

Repeating some details:

Host: Win 7 Pro
Guest: Win Server 2012 in a .VHD, but the problem happens with new VMs
Current VirtualBox Version: 4.3.10-93012

Anyone have any ideas on what I missing here. What I think is a clean installation is not truly clean, so I'd like to figure out what's being retained or what's causing the problem.

I would attach my logs, but I just created my account and also don't have a post anywhere. I could make a useless post and wait a day, but the logs are short, so I'm going to paste them here. I don't know which the lesser evil (useless post or pasting logs):

VBoxSVC.log

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VirtualBox COM Server 4.3.10 r93012 win.amd64 (Mar 26 2014 18:53:57) release log
00:00:00.001000 main     Log opened 2014-05-15T21:15:29.996354800Z
00:00:00.001000 main     Build Type: release
00:00:00.001000 main     OS Product: Windows 7
00:00:00.001000 main     OS Release: 6.1.7601
00:00:00.001000 main     OS Service Pack: 1
00:00:00.014000 main     DMI Product Name: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
00:00:00.018001 main     DMI Product Version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
00:00:00.018001 main     Host RAM: 16087MB total, 13311MB available
00:00:00.018001 main     Executable: C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxSVC.exe
00:00:00.018001 main     Process ID: 6516
00:00:00.018001 main     Package type: WINDOWS_64BITS_GENERIC
00:00:00.198011          HostDnsMonitorProxy: Host's DNS information updated:
00:00:00.199011          VDInit finished
00:00:15.317415          ERROR [COM]: aRC=VBOX_E_VM_ERROR (0x80bb0003) aIID={480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048} aComponent={Machine} aText={Failed to assign the machine to the session (E_FAIL)}, preserve=false
00:00:15.336418          ERROR [COM]: aRC=E_FAIL (0x80004005) aIID={480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048} aComponent={Machine} aText={This machine does not have any snapshots}, preserve=false
06:37:53.439512          Loading settings file "C:\VM\Server 2012\Server 2012.vbox" with version "1.12-windows"
06:37:53.441512          ERROR [COM]: aRC=VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80bb0001) aIID={fafa4e17-1ee2-4905-a10e-fe7c18bf5554} aComponent={VirtualBox} aText={Could not find a registered machine with UUID {6ba832fc-af88-4253-ac43-5ae765ccf7c6}}, preserve=false
06:37:53.501520          ERROR [COM]: aRC=E_FAIL (0x80004005) aIID={480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048} aComponent={Machine} aText={This machine does not have any snapshots}, preserve=false
06:39:07.207879          ERROR [COM]: aRC=VBOX_E_VM_ERROR (0x80bb0003) aIID={480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048} aComponent={Machine} aText={Failed to assign the machine to the session (E_FAIL)}, preserve=false
06:43:04.423502          ERROR [COM]: aRC=VBOX_E_INVALID_VM_STATE (0x80bb0002) aIID={480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048} aComponent={Machine} aText={Machine is not locked for session (session state: Unlocked)}, preserve=false
06:53:20.676756          ERROR [COM]: aRC=E_FAIL (0x80004005) aIID={c20238e4-3221-4d3f-8891-81ce92d9f913} aComponent={ProgressProxy} aText={Result code is not available, operation is still in progress}, preserve=false

selectorwindow.log (multiple files combined)

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VirtualBox GUI VM Selector Window 4.3.10 r93012 win.amd64 (Mar 26 2014 18:53:57) release log
00:00:00.357020 Log opened 2014-05-15T21:15:30.333374100Z
00:00:00.357020 Build Type: release
00:00:00.357020 OS Product: Windows 7
00:00:00.357020 OS Release: 6.1.7601
00:00:00.357020 OS Service Pack: 1
00:00:00.362020 DMI Product Name: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
00:00:00.364020 DMI Product Version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
00:00:00.364020 Host RAM: 16087MB total, 13299MB available
00:00:00.364020 Executable: C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VirtualBox.exe
00:00:00.364020 Process ID: 1384
00:00:00.364020 Package type: WINDOWS_64BITS_GENERIC
00:00:00.370021 UIMediumEnumerator: Medium-enumeration started...
00:00:00.422024 UIMediumEnumerator: Medium-enumeration finished!
00:00:03.308565 UIMediumEnumerator: Medium-enumeration started...
00:00:03.349903 UIMediumEnumerator: Medium-enumeration finished!
00:00:15.353427 UIMediumEnumerator: Machine registration event received, ID = ec9fad01-e93b-44e1-9fae-a785b070a054
00:00:15.358328 UIMediumEnumerator:  New usage: <empty>
00:00:15.358340 UIMediumEnumerator: Machine registration event processed, ID = ec9fad01-e93b-44e1-9fae-a785b070a054
04:07:50.212609 UIMediumEnumerator: Machine unregistration event received, ID = ec9fad01-e93b-44e1-9fae-a785b070a054
04:07:50.212637 Log rotated - Log started 2014-05-15T21:15:30.333374100Z
04:07:50.214462 Log continuation - Log started 2014-05-15T21:15:30.333374100Z
04:07:50.214503 UIMediumEnumerator:  Old usage: <empty>
04:07:50.214518 UIMediumEnumerator: Machine unregistration event processed, ID = ec9fad01-e93b-44e1-9fae-a785b070a054
06:37:53.514934 UIMediumEnumerator: Machine registration event received, ID = 6ba832fc-af88-4253-ac43-5ae765ccf7c6
06:37:53.514998 Log rotated - Log started 2014-05-15T21:15:30.333374100Z
06:37:53.518264 Log continuation - Log started 2014-05-15T21:15:30.333374100Z
06:37:53.530498 UIMediumEnumerator:  New usage: eb5af9ff-fd74-408c-8048-4e5a17bd76ef
06:37:53.534798 UIMediumEnumerator:  Medium with key={eb5af9ff-fd74-408c-8048-4e5a17bd76ef} cached.
06:37:53.534973 UIMediumEnumerator: Machine registration event processed, ID = 6ba832fc-af88-4253-ac43-5ae765ccf7c6
06:37:53.558299 UIMediumEnumerator: Medium-enumeration finished!
06:39:07.117437 2D support test failed: err code (VINF_SUCCESS (0) - Success.)
06:39:07.126842 UIMediumEnumerator: Medium-enumeration started...
06:39:16.775062 UIMediumEnumerator: Medium-enumeration finished!

There are no new logs from the VM itself.

[ramk13]

Not intending to bump myself, but I found a thread just like my problem which I didn't find yesterday. My problem is almost exactly as described here. I still can't post the link so just replace the t= portion of this page's address with 55474

The verdict there from mpack was:

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.

In the end it looks like the person had to reformat the host installation, which I can't really do anytime soon. It seems crazy that VirtualBox can end up in a state where the only option is to reformat and there's no indication as to exactly where the problem is. More than likely, I'll just have to give up on VirtualBox (which I really like) and use another VM solution until I have time to reformat.

Is it possible that I need to uninstall as admin also?

Any last ditch ideas before I give up?

EDIT: I downgraded all the way to 4.0.24 and now I'm getting a different error which may be more informative:

Now when you create a new machine it does create some files in the VMs folder, but it errors with:

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Failed to attach the hard disk ([path to hard disk]) to the slot IDE Primary Master of the machine.

and

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Failed to attach the CD/DVD Device() to the slot IDE Secondary Master of the machine.

Maybe the installer has messed up the virtual IDE driver? I'm a little out of my range here, but I don't have any better ideas/guesses.

EDIT2:

Some progress!

I installed VirtualBox with Portable VirtualBox and everything is working like it did before. This definitely leads me to believe its a problem with the installer, since Portable VirtualBox seems to manually extract files from the MSI and put them in its own folder. So maybe there's some hope for fixing the original problem if I can figure out what the substantive difference between the two installations is. I might not dig further into that since I have a temp solution, but maybe it'll help someone else...

EDIT3:

Success!!

After using Portable VirtualBox, I restarted and installed the same VirtualBox version the normal way and it magically started working. I'm not sure what Portable VirtualBox overwrote, but it appears to be functioning normally now.