Installing Win7, fails, HDD not booteable anymore

[JaM0N]

Hi, today I was installing Windows 7 SP1 on a VM. After about 32% host went to a complete freeze.

Tried Ctrl+Alt+Del, Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, Ctrl+Alt+F?, and even REISUB, nothing... Ok, hard reboot... POST takes long time on the HDD, to say it has no partition table. BIOS does not recognise it as a booteable device.

Wasn't expecting such kind of fatal error so no backup, no sandbox, no rescue drive/partition/disk. So, anybody had this issue? Is there some way to remake the partition table without destroying the files?

What could go so wrong?

[mpack]

A bad section of the host drive seems like an obvious explanation.

Please post a VM log file. With the VM fully shut down, right click and "Show Log" in the GUI, save "VBox.log" (ONLY) to a zip, and attach the zip here.

[JaM0N]

But I'm not able to start the host. I'm googling how to restore the disk...

If you could help me getting my linux back on, I'll be glad to upload the log.

Thanks.-

[mpack]

Oh, I see, I thought it was the VM that wouldn't boot after a host crash.

If you have a dead host then I'm afraid that is beyond my remit.

[JaM0N]

Ok, been able to start the host ... Don't know what will happen after reset, so I'm backing up

Now, I have the log. Lets see what has gone wrong

[mpack]

00:00:01.745067 Host RAM: 2015MB total, 1428MB available
...
00:00:02.426818 RamSize <integer> = 0x000000003e800000 (1 048 576 000, 1 000 MB)
00:00:02.427338 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000008000000 (134 217 728, 128 MB)

I would be concerned about using such a high percentage of host resources to run this VM. The host only has 300MB RAM left. Not a lot.

The log won't tell me about host disk problems, so you should check that out too.

The next thing that concerns me is:"Windows 7 Ultimate Sp1 x86-x64 En-Us .......... Pre-Activation". As far as I'm aware, genuine Win7 installs don't come preactivated. Where did this Windows install come from?

[Martin]

"Pre-activation" doesn't need to mean preactivated. It could also be an image created before the activation steps.

[JaM0N]

Ok, step by step

I would be concerned about using such a high percentage of host resources to run this VM. The host only has 300MB RAM left. Not a lot.

I'll fix that. I don't have a lot of RAM, so maybe I could add some to be safe. Could that be the reason of the host halting?

The log won't tell me about host disk problems, so you should check that out too.

Just wondering, could the virtual drive be doing something at the same time that linux stopped working that can damage the HDD partition table? Otherwise I must keep looking, but can't find anything on the logs

The next thing that concerns me is:"Windows 7 Ultimate Sp1 x86-x64 En-Us .......... Pre-Activation". As far as I'm aware, genuine Win7 installs don't come preactivated. Where did this Windows install come from?

I've got it from uncertain lands ... My genuine disk had an terrible accident, my girlfriend sit over it. I've already paid for it, so my conscience is clear.

Lastly... Would you say it's safe to give it another try? After fixing the resources thing?

Thanks for your help.

[mpack]

Ok, step by step

I would be concerned about using such a high percentage of host resources to run this VM. The host only has 300MB RAM left. Not a lot.

I'll fix that. I don't have a lot of RAM, so maybe I could add some to be safe. Could that be the reason of the host halting?

Everything I mentioned (including a dodgy Win7 torrent download) could be the reason for it misbehaving, but I don't have a lot of information to go on.

The log won't tell me about host disk problems, so you should check that out too.

Just wondering, could the virtual drive be doing something at the same time that linux stopped working that can damage the HDD partition table?

I doubt it. The "virtual drive" is just a file to the host. Host operating systems are generally pretty good at not trashing files that are opened for writing by an application. Unless you get a disk error on the host that is. A host filesystem check is always a good idea - which I previously suggested. Is this done yet?

Lastly... Would you say it's safe to give it another try? After fixing the resources thing?

Safe? What's the worst that can happen? Plan for that and you'll be quite safe. Just be sure to run RAM and disk integrity checks first, because we haven't bottomed out the system failure yet, and I can tell you that it wasn't VirtualBox - which just happened to be the unlucky app which was running at the time. VirtualBox uses a lot of resources (RAM and disk space), so if there's a problem with those resources then VirtualBox is often the first to trip over it.

[JaM0N]

Thank you very much! I'll continue by diagnosing the hardware then.

I'm adding some Gb of RAM as you suggested.

As for me, consider this thread closed as it's not VBox falut.

Thank you again!