virtualbox.org

I am trying to help out a friend. She is using Ubuntu 14.04 and has a vdi with Winxp in it. Winxp will not start in VB in normal mode but will start in safe mode. I seem to remember that WinXP has a repair mode, but how do I repair winxp in a vdi that is not fully loading? I have tried going back to an earlier working version of XP but that was not set up.

If I put the winxp system disk into the dvd of the host how can ensure that it repairs the damaged version of winxp in the vdi, that she uses?

Robin

It doesn't matter if the WinXP is in a vdi or not. Treat it like you would a normal, physical computer. If you believe that it is the guest additions that are causing the problem, boot into safe mode and uninstall them. But, other than that, VirtualBox or not, it's the same procedure as in an actual machine. It would be better if you were to note the error and search a WinXP forum.

Let us assume that there are two vdi's registered in her VB. None should not be loaded when I try to run repair mode using the winxp system disk. I put the system disk in to the ubuntu machine's dvd and then what? How does the Windows system disk find the right vdi and then operating system to repair?

Robin

Booting a PC from CD media does not prevent access to the PCs normal disks. A VM is no different.

Just to get the terminology correct, a VDI can do absolutely nothing alone (like a hard drive alone can't do anything without a motherboard, memory and peripherals). You need a "recipe" to go with it; the VirtualMachine (VM, or guest). Now, do you have two VMs or one VM with two hard drives (VDI) attached to it?

In any event, as I said, think of your VM as a real computer. How would you fix your real computer? You put the XP CD, boot from it and proceed to fix the problems. You do NOT repair the VDI, you repair the OS on the VM.

robbyx wrote:If I put the winxp system disk into the dvd of the host how can ensure that it repairs the damaged version of winxp in the vdi, that she uses?

Robin

I gather from this that you are worried about ensuring that the guest machine (XP) reads the dvd, not the host. This is not really a problem. If it was, how would you install XP in the guest from a DVD in the first place?

While the guest machine is shut down, go to its settings. Find the CD/DVD drive of the vm and set it to use the physical drive of the host machine. Now insert the DVD in the machine, and if the host tries to use it, stop the program which is doing that. Now boot the vm. It will boot from the DVD.