VirtualBox Ejecting External on Which vdi Resides

[jt643]

I just upgraded to 5.0.8 and am running Windows 10 (Guest) on El Capitan.

Everything has been working great until today. I plug in my external drive (on which the virtual disk image resides), open VirtualBox, Start the Virtual Machine, and my OS X gives me an error message saying "Disk Not Ejected Properly" and then the virtual box boot window displays, "FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium! System halted..."

Any ideas?

[socratis]

I may be wrong but I have a feeling that it's the hard disk that is going bad. What's the format of the HD? Can you check it for errors?

[jt643]

Totally...will check it right now. It is a Buffalo SATA 5400 mobile external (1 TB) Mac OS X Journaled. Checking it now.

[jt643]

No errors. Looks healthy! I have had this in the past where I tried to open the vdi when I had two external partitions connected by the same name. However, once I disconnected them and then restarted VirtualBox, it worked fine. Not this time!

[socratis]

Well, to me it is a problem when I see an OSX-based error saying "Disk Not Ejected Properly". Not a VirtualBox issue at that point. And if something is corrupted at the OSX level, then your VDI might be corrupted, which may lead to VirtualBox throwing an error.

As a test, can you copy your VM to your local HD and run it from there? See the "Moving a VM" topic, but think of it as copy a VM.

[loukingjr]

FWIW, you will get the "Disk Not Ejected Properly" message if you don't eject the drive from the Finder before you try and select it from the Devices menu.

[jt643]

I will move it to my internal drive.

The other comment is helpful. I am doing it the way I have done it for the last couple months. Sometimes it will say that it can't find my vdi. So, I have to manually find it in my storage-->settings on the virtual box dashboard. However, now, it shows that it finds it, and when I start up the machine, the OS X messages appear that the external drive (Mac and Windows partitions) were not ejected properly. Odd!

[socratis]

It is a Buffalo SATA 5400 mobile external (1 TB) Mac OS X Journaled.

the external drive (Mac and Windows partitions)

OK, which of the two is it? A Mac only or a Mac/Win partition setup? And because we've exchanged so many messages with no luck so far, I need you to describe me in full detail your exact setup, including where are your VM definitions, where are your data, how exactly you start the VM, when do you plug in the ext. HD, etc., etc.

BTW, I just noticed viewtopic.php?f=8&t=69401 . Still can't understand what exactly you're trying to do.

[loukingjr]

socratis is correct. Complete information avoids going off on a wild goose chase. Good luck socratis.

[socratis]

Good luck socratis.

Why, are you going on vacation or something?

[loukingjr]

something like that.

[jt643]

Got it...

My external configuration (Buffalo External - 1 TB)
1. 900 GB Mac OSX Journaled (Mac External)
2. 100 GB Windows NTFS (WINDOWS)

I have my vdi (75 GB flex drive allocated) saved on:

WINDOWS\Windows VM\Windows 10\Windows 10.vdi

I typically connect my Buffalo Drive before I open VirtualBox...then start my Windows 10.vdi machine, and it starts right up. Sometimes I forget I have a second backup connected (which also has a partition called 'WINDOWS'...and that always runs in conflict and doesn't let me start my machine. I then disconnect my second backup...restart VirtualBox, and it works.

THIS TIME...I upgraded to 5.0.8, connected my Buffalo Drive, made sure my Windows 10.vdi was accessible (checked storage on my VB settings, and there were no warnings) and started it up. As soon as I did, I got the Mac OS X messages that my drives had not been ejected properly and then the black VB box with the "FATAL ERROR..." message.

UPDATE: I have cloned my vdi from my external to my desktop. It works fine. But, it still makes me think something is different with the new VB version, or I am missing a step.

Let me know if you need more. Thanks for your help!

[jt643]

Okay...so I noticed on my clone directory that there are several other files than my vdi - some vbox and others. None of these were present on my previous external directory. Are those necessary, and can I simply copy the files from my clone and rename them the original machine name to get it to work?

[jt643]

One more post before I shut it down for the night...

Even with my clone, I am getting the OS X errors about not ejecting the disk properly...

Just with my desktop vdi, it boots right up. When I shut down my machine (desktop clone), it still gives me errors that the disk did not eject correctly.

Odd...

[socratis]

OK, this is some really, really weird setup.

So, you have the VDI file stored on your NTFS partition named "WINDOWS", right? Mind you that OSX supports read only for NTFS, which means that you're using FUSE for OSX along with NTFS-3G. Not the best setup in the world. Especially when you have an HFS+ partition which is the native one for OSX.

On top of that, if I understand it correctly, you have another backup HD which also has a "WINDOWS" named partition. Well, depending on the order which you mount your two HDs, bad things can happen in the naming and mounting points, i.e. "/Volumes/WINDOWS" and "/Volumes/WINDOWS 1". Note that on your desktop or in the Finder, they both are going to appear as WINDOWS.

Furthermore, you have a backup of your VM someplace else? How did you create that?

If that covers it, please verify.