[Solved] FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium! System Halted!

[Hoggio]

I think I know what I am to do but not entirely sure. I am right in saying the primary master is the vdi file?
And the secondary slave is VBoxGuestAdditions.iso?

Actually socratis it might be better not to keep it simple. I need to know certain things.

The vdi is the hard drive, yes?
To replace it I go to storage in settings, yes?
Please guide me from there?

[socratis]

You do not need the Guest Additions (GAs) ISO in the drive, except when you want to install the GAs. You should definitely remove the GAs CD from the drive, not delete the drive altogether. I've seen people add a drive just to insert a CD and then delete the drive. No need to to that.

Keep your primary master for your boot hard drive, as you correctly mentioned. Your virtual CD/DVD can either be the secondary master, primary slave or secondary slave, it doesn't matter. Just like on a real computer...

The VDI is the virtual hard drive (Virtual Disk Image). If you overwrite it with the TimeMachine backup, you don't have to change anything. If you remove it from the VM settings, then you have to add it back. For me, the 2nd method is the safest.

BTW, you do all that with VirtualBox closed and nothing Virtual* or VBox* or VM* in the Activity Monitor.

[Hoggio]

Ok. So under storage I now have IDE Primary Master as the restored backup Windows 8.1 Full.vdi

There is currently no secondary slave as I removed GA from there.
Screenshot attached.
What do I do now?

[socratis]

What do I do now?

Start the VM???

[Hoggio]

Mouse and keyboard disconnected and recovery mode. Blue screen that says:

Recovery
Your PC needs to be repaired.
An unexpected error has occurred.
Error code: 0xc0000225
You'll need to use the recovery tools on your installation media. If you don't have any installation media (like a disc or USB device),
contact your system administrator or PC manufacturer.

Press Enter to try again
Press F8 for Start-up Settings

[socratis]

OK, maybe we did this wrong, because I have the feeling that you may have modified the VM "recipe" after you took the backup. So, new strategy; restore the whole VM folder. Here's how:

• Make sure that in your TimeMachine backup folder for that VM you have both the .VDI and the .VBOX files. This is really important.
• Select the VM in VirtualBox Manager » right-click, Remove...
• Select "Delete all files". Quit VirtualBox.
• Make sure there's nothing else in "/Users/timhodgson/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 8.1 Full/". If there's an extra file or two that you have there and you need it, move it elsewhere.
• Delete the folder "/Users/timhodgson/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 8.1 Full/".
• Restore that folder from the TimeMachine backup.
• Launch VirtualBox and go to "Machine » Add..." and select "/Users/timhodgson/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 8.1 Full/Windows 8.1 Full.vbox" or simply from the Finder double-click that .VBOX file.

[Hoggio]

Ok. I will have a go at doing this.

Can I just check – there are 2 .VBOX files:
1. Windows 8.1 Full-1.14-macosx.vbox
2. Windows 8.1 Full.vbox

I am assuming they both have a function and should be both be restored from TimeMachine?

[Hoggio]

Just seen you said files and not file!

[socratis]

Yes, they're fine. The *1-14.vbox is from a previous version, it doesn't hurt. Just restore the whole folder...

[Hoggio]

Hi.

So this is where I'm at.

I did as instructed last night and all worked fine. I then went to open a program and it hung on the splash screen for over an hour. I closed windows down and reopened and got the same FATAL: error.

So...this morning I have gone through the same procedure as before but used an older backup; started up the machine and got the blue screen again. This time it said:

Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We're just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you. (0-100%)

It then went to restart with (normal start up screen) with the footnote repaing the disc or similar, then back to the blue screen with same message and then restart with same footnote.
And then it now has a blue screen with:
Automatic Repair

Your PC did not start correctly.
Press "Restart" to restart your PC, which can sometimes fix the problem. You can also press "Advanced options" to try other options to repair your PC.

All help appreciated so far...any suggestions?

[socratis]

1. Treat it like you would a real Windows computer. Just because it's running within VirtualBox, doesn't necessarily make it a VirtualBox problem.
2. Right-click on the VM in VirtualBox Manager. Show in Finder. ZIP that selected .vbox file and attach it with your response.

[Hoggio]

This is where I realise why I have Mac!

File attached.

[socratis]

I'll list the differences between your setup and the default setup of a brand new Win8.1 VM. I don't think it will make a difference, but I would be amiss if I didn't include them.

<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/RestrictedRuntimeMachineMenuActions" value="SaveState,PowerOff"/>

That tells me that your preferred method of "closing" the VM is to close the window and save its state. You might save a few seconds here and there, but it's not a good practice and it's definitely discouraged when upgrading VirtualBox.

<Memory RAMSize="1024"/>

The default these days is 2048 MB, but it may have changed recently, I'll have to check.

<LPT>
  <Port slot="1" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="7"/>
</LPT>

You must have your reasons for adding this, I'm not going to question them.

<GuestProperties>
  <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxControl.exe" value="4.3.26r98988" timestamp="1486027876828175000" flags=""/>
...
  <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/HostVerLastChecked" value="5.0.32" timestamp="1486028258879060000" flags=""/>
...
</GuestProperties>

The GAs are quite old, but since you can't boot, it will have to wait.

Other than that, I would search for "0xc0000225 windows 8.1". Plenty of stories and potential solutions even for real computers. I can't tell what got messed up in the VM, but it doesn't look like a VirtualBox configuration.

[Hoggio]

Thanks for that.

It's interesting because I actually don't save the state. I shut down Windows by clicking in the bottom right corner of the screen as you would a Windows computer so it's interesting it tells you otherwise.

It would be worth increasing the RAM as it can be a bit slow.

I not sure what the third point is telling you – could you elaborate?

GA – yes, will do once I get things up and running again.

[socratis]

I not sure what the third point is telling you – could you elaborate?

It says that you've setup a parallel port (LPT) in your VM. Since there's no GUI to perform that, it means that at some point you added a parallel port to the VM from the command line. Or the VM is old that an LPT port was the default (I haven't checked the changes on that one). It shouldn't matter (I think).