virtualbox.org

Hi there!
I was originally a Parallels user, and decided to tryout VirtualBox. So I kept the disk image as a .hdd file so I could easily switch back or to another virtual machine if I wanted to. Turns out I am a LOT happier with VirtualBox that I have no desire to use any other solution.

So I made a .vdi copy of the .hdd to use instead, so I could get some disk space back (20GB). But now ever time I boot up XP using the new .vdi I created I get this message.

Cobra Blade wrote:I made a .vdi copy of the .hdd

How did you do that? Did you copy the HDD to a new location and renamed to VDI? Did you use a tool? A tutorial?

Cobra Blade wrote:so I could get some disk space back (20GB)

How can that happen?

I'm guessing he means that he had separate Parallels and VirtualBox VMs (he latter for testing), now he wants to migrate entirely to VirtualBox.

Make sure the hard disk is attached to an IDE controller, not SATA or SCSI.

Moving XP from Parallels to VirtualBox counts as a migration. All the normal preparation steps apply, particularly the use of MergeIDE, though of course you can ignore the disk imaging steps, and you must remove any Parallels guest tools.

Sorry, I guess I should elaborate.
I already did away with Parallels some time ago, but was still using the .hdd file in VirtualBox.
It was all running well... but the file size was bloated from some games that were no longer on there. So I ran a defrag followed by sdelete to overwrite all the free space with zeros so VirtualBox would recognise it as free space.

This was all done so when I cloned the .hdd by going to File/Virtual Media Manage in VirtualBox and choosing .vdi it would only be as big as the actual size of what was on there... that's how I reclaimed 20GB.

But as mentioned above, while it all seemed to go well, using this .vdi clone has the issue above.
These are the settings, the only thing I change was what hard drive file was being used.

Controller: IDE
Type: PIIX4
Hard Disk: IDE Primary Master
Solid-state Drive unticked.

Makes more sense now. I could speculate, but I'd rather have the facts. So,

1. Start the VM. Not from a saved or suspended state. Clean start.
2. Take the steps required to generate/observe the error.
3. Shut down the VM. Not suspended, not paused. Shut down.
4. Right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager. Select "Show Log..."
5. Save it (just the first log), ZIP it and attach it in your response (see the "Upload attachment" at the bottom of the form).

On top of that, I'd like to see the "recipe" of the VM, the ".vbox" file:

1. Right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager. Select "Show in Finder".
2. ZIP the selected ".vbox" file and attach it in your response.

No problem socratis,
I've just followed the steps you provided and have the files you've asked for attached to this post. Hope this helps see what is going on.

I have good news and bad news...

The good news is that you followed the instructions to the letter. Not many do! Thank you!

The bad news is that I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary in your setup. Except maybe one minor detail, where your VDI is not stored in the "default" location where your VM resides ("/Users/Cobra/VirtualBox VMs/Windows XP"), but in a highly unusual place ("/Users/Cobra/Library/VirtualBox/winxp.vdi"). No biggie, for the moment, we'll address it after we're done with our basic problemo.

I will try to re-create your setup later today and see what gives. In the mean time, you could go to your XP guest and see if there are any Parallels tools installed. Uninstall them. Reboot. Go to the XP Device Manager, select the Disk Drive controller and select "Uninstall". Of course this is all after you've made a backup of your VM.

Where did this XP image come from? Is it legitimate, not some slimmed down hacked version? I'm finding it weird that it isn't being specific about which service it can't load. I can tell you that it has nothing to do with VDI vs HDD (it's a VBOX HDD regardess of the container format). Nor should it be provoked by anything else that has been mentioned.

Thank you socratic.
I'm pretty sure I uninstalled the Parallels tools back when I originally switch from it to VirtualBox.
Can't see anything Parallels related now to uninstall.

Hi mpack, this image has been kicking around for some years now, but it was originally an XP Home OEM CD I used back when I first discovered Parallels back in '06 I think. Not sure how much luck I'd have digging up the disc now if I needed to reinstall to fix the problem.

Took a while, but I finally dug up the CD. I used it to repair my installation and that fix the problem... so the only thing I can think of is the HD cloning process must have corrupted some files somehow. So if anyone else ever comes across this issue, that's the way to go about fixing it.

Thanks for letting us know!

I doubt there was any corruption - XP has features to deal with that. This seems like an IDE controller identification issue that might have been fixed by MergeIDE, as I mentioned in my first response.

mpack wrote:I doubt there was any corruption - XP has features to deal with that. This seems like an IDE controller identification issue that might have been fixed by MergeIDE, as I mentioned in my first response.

I did try MergeIDE, but that didn't yield any results. Not for the already created .vdi at any rate. If I had to un-delete the original .hdd and use MergeIDE before converting the .hdd to a .vdi, then no I didn't do that, so not sure if that would have worked also.

As I mentioned above, the container format (hdd vs vdi) is not relevant to the guest. That's purely a management issue for the VirtualBox host software. In both cases the guest sees a drive with the same number of sectors, and the same content in each sector.

I believe you that the image being a hdd or vdi format has little to do with the issue I was having, since doing a repair install fix the issue. So if file corruption is also out of the question... there must have been something not quite right with the cloned guest to cause the issue. Something that reinstalling/repairing of Windows was able to fix. I guess not that it overly matters anymore since if anyone else finds themselves with this predicament, the fix is as mentioned earlier.