virtualbox.org

* Devices> Insert Guest Additions CD Image update broke my Linux Mint 18 guest.

First I started my Linux Mint 18 guest VM that's running on my Windows 10 host machine. Then I wanted to update my Guest Additions and ran it from Linux guest VM. It seemed to have updated without any problems I didn't read the finishing message that thorough. But I recall seing the word restart in that message. So I clicked on
* Machine> Reset thinking that it would do a soft PC reboot. But after that my Linux Mint 18 guest could never start again. I just see the mouse icon spinning for at least 30 minutes without anything happening with and without the Guest Addition feature.

What can I do to revert back, to before I clicked on this Guest Addition update button?


* Version 5.1.8r111374 (Qt5.5.1)
* I think I have installed the Guest Additions (in the guest). But I managed to remove Guest Additions by right click the guest in main manager.
* Host 64 bit Windows 10, 32GB RAM
* Guest 64 bit Linux Mint 18, 16GB RAM

Eject the virtual CD.

I couldn't find anything to eject from the CD/DVD. So I right clicked the Linux guest and did this:

Settings> Storage> IDE Controller> and Removed the Optical Drive.

But starting the Linux guest still only gives a never ending spinning mouse icon. I think the Linux guest broke for good. Is there a way for me to recover all my saved files in this broken guest?

You can mount the drive as the second disk in another VM.

Tnx for the advice I will try and experiment with this solution. One question though my broken VDI that I have added to another working VDI as described in this link's second post:

Of a virtual machine
http://askubuntu.com/questions/425518/r ... achine-vdi

My broken VDI is around 100 GB in size how long should I expect my new working VDI to start/load? Since adding the broken VDI as a second disk made the mouse icon spin again forever it feels like. There's no timer so I don't know if it's processing or if it's stuck. Should I wait at least 1 hour before I close the new loading VM?

Sorry, I can't answer that question since I don't recognize that scenario at all, plus we seem to have drifted far from the subject raised in the topic title. Finally I don't really want to get into proofreading offsite blog posts.

It sounds like you have a heavily corrupted guest filesystem. Updating the guest additions will not do that.

I suggest that you start a new topic to ask about fixing a corrupted guest filesystem. I probably will not participate since I'm not a Linux user. I'll give you a couple of hints however: (1) back up your VM so things can't get any worse, (2) check out what filesystem repair tools are available.

p.s. I assume that if your guest uses snapshots then you'd have mentioned it by now.