virtualbox.org

A beginner in VirtualBox, I am (not unexpectedly) unable to make my first virtual machine ( a Windows 8 ) boot. When I boot it up with "VboxManage startvm Win8C" I get "VM Win8C has been successfully started", a new window pops up but disappears within instants, and the next showvminfo shows my VM as being "powered off".

My question is not to help me with getting my VM right, and that is why I am not posting the "showvminfo", at least not yet.
I want to debug this myself, that will be more useful both to me and to the community.

My question is how to debug the boot, i.e. how to get an idea of the messages that flash along while booting. I had believed this could be achieved with the "video capture" feature, but find myself unable to activate it: when I type "VboxManage modifyvm Win8C --videocap on" the response "Unknown option: --videocap"

This is running VBoxManage 4.3.36 on Ubuntu 14.4 - kernel 3.13.0-88

Thanks for any pointers!
K

Kamiel Kontrarie wrote:when I type "VboxManage modifyvm Win8C --videocap on" the response "Unknown option: --videocap"

That would be quite accurate. There is no "--videocap" option in 4.3.38. That option was introduced in the 5.0.x series.

Also keep in mind that if you installed the Ubuntu repo version of VirtualBox they would be your support channel due to changes when forked. We do not know what they have changed.
Official versions can be obtained here: http://www.virtualbox.org/