virtualbox.org

Ubuntu 8.04 Host
Virtual Box 1.6.2
Problem applies to both Linux and Windows Guests

I installed virtualbox_1.6.2-31466_Ubuntu_hardy_i386.deb about a month ago. Until yesterday, I had no problems creating, and cloning guests. Yesterday, cloned guests would not boot. Tonight, none of my guests will boot. The predominant error message when I start a guest after it gets to the Starting up ... screen is:

[15.256199] crc error
[15.281036] Kernal panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

Some guests never get past the Starting up... screen.

One guest reported:
Starting up...
Loading please wait...
/init: .: 34: Can't open /scripts/functions
[14.943169] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

Anyone have any ideas about what would cause such a catastrophic failure of all my guests?

Thanks.

Have you just done any OS updates? The Hardy kernel has gone through a few changes over the last months and this could cause VBox to break.

If so, you might need to reinstall VBox.

Okay, the Hardy kernal has been updated. I completely removed VBox and did a fresh install.

Existing Ubuntu Guests: won't boot

Existing Windows 2000 Guest: On boot up it reported files were corrupt and requested CD. I inserted the Win2000 CD and attempted a repair. On restart I got the error: "File \$Win_NT$.~BT\ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded. The error code is 4". I never could get it to boot.

New Ubuntu guest (iso downloaded 6/8/08 if that matters). It begins the install but then quits.

The host machine is running fine with the latest Ubuntu 8.04 updates. I checked the hard drive with a tool from Seagate. It checked out fine. It is a SATA drive.

I have been using VBox for a month without a problem so I am really at a loss as to what happened.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Rea

I forgot to mention I am using the binary version of Virtual Box (virtualbox_1.6.2-31466_Ubuntu_hardy_i386.deb)

Okay, I solved the problem. One stick of RAM failed. Once the bad RAM was removed, VirtualBox worked fine. Good thing I backed up most of my guests!