Mac OS 10.9 Host Mac OS 10.6/10.7/10.8 guests

[tblevinsmcp]

I have a Mac Mini running Mavericks but I support Mac OS 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9. I own all of the operating systems (10.6.3 is an actual DVD but 10.7 and 10.8 are both downloadable media from the Apple Store) and at various times my Mac Mini and MacBook Pro have had all of these OS's installed. I'm finding it is easier to support my customer's if I can directly reference the OS they are working on. With this in mind I added a 1 TB hard drive to my Mac Mini with the intention of installing each of these older OS's in their own VM using VirtualBox.

I'm having trouble getting Mac OS 10.6.3 retail DVD installing in the VM. I have an LG DVD drive attached to my Mac Mini but VirtualBox won't see it. I used Disk Utility on my Mavericks host to create a DMG and also an ISO so that I could use it as install media through VirtualBox but I'm still getting a FATAL: No bootable media found using both the DMG and the ISO mounted as both SATA and IDE drives. I use VirtualBox quite a bit with Windows so I'm not new to VirtualBox, but I'm finding this issue with installing Mac OS challenging. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[loukingjr]

check this thread Status of OSX on OSX.

it should give you a place to start.

[tblevinsmcp]

It was that thread that encouraged me to try installing with VirtualBox as it showed others had success but the thread do not address the basic installation issue I'm seeing of not being able to recognize the installation media. I can understand VirtualBox not seeing a USB DVD drive, but I've never had a problem installing from an ISO image. In fact all of my Microsoft VM's were installed from ISO. As I mentioned in the above post my 10.6.3 DVD is the actual Retail DVD directly from Apple that I created the DMG and ISO from Disk Utility on my Mac Mini running 10.9.

[socratis]

A couple of things:

• Can you boot from the actual DVD? (not sure if MacMinis can boot from external optical drives)
• You said that you created a DMG from DiskUtility. Did you select the CD/DVD master option?
• What's your MacMini model?
• Can you attach the <VM>.vbox and VBox.log files compressed?

[tblevinsmcp]

Ah, I believe I have figured out my issue. My Mac OS X 10.6.3 Retail DVD is not Mac OS 10.6.3 Server. After I installed Mac OS X 10.6.3 Retail I went on the Apple Store and purchased the Mac OS X Server upgrade and upgraded my installation to Mac OS X Server. Since Apple only allows Virtualization of Mac OS X Server, VB will not install what I have. I'm trying to see if I can purchase Mac OS 10.6 Server on Apple's site now but it does not look to be for sale. I will wait until later this morning when I can chat with them or drop by my Apple store here in town to see what my options are.

[tblevinsmcp]

A couple of things:

• Can you boot from the actual DVD? (not sure if MacMinis can boot from external optical drives)
• You said that you created a DMG from DiskUtility. Did you select the CD/DVD master option?
• What's your MacMini model?
• Can you attach the <VM>.vbox and VBox.log files compressed?

I have not tried to boot directly from the DVD drive before. It's the LG Super Multi Blade drive similar to the Apple super drive.
When I created the DMG I picked the compressed version, but when I went back and made an ISO I picked the CD/DVD master option so I have the image two ways.
I have the latest Mac Mini, model: MD388LL/A I did upgrade the memory to 16GB since I was planning to run multiple VM's from it.
I don't have access to the log files atm but can later but if you read my post above this one I believe I have figured out my issue.

[socratis]

VirtualBox does not differentiate between Client and Server versions(*). Which means that there is something else going on here. Either the ISO has not been copied in the correct format that is expected from a "computer" (real or virtual), or (and I may be not too far off), is that the list of "acceptable" IDs/Models that the 10.6.3 DVD has, does not include your MacMini.

So, please include your .vbox for your VM and (if any) the VBox.log.

(*) In order to do so it would have to read the HFS filesystem, go to a very specific location and check for the specifics of whether it's a server or a client CD/DVD. The code that boots the "computer" is the same.

PS: atm means "at the moment"?