virtualbox.org

I recently got virtual box and had the "No Bootable Medium" issue, i checked thew FAQ and it said that i needed to get a CD for a guest operating system, so how can i install this OS onto my virtual machine?

When you have the installation media (CD or ISO file), you assign it to the optical drive of your virtual machine and start the vm. It will boot from the installation media and run the install, just as you install the OS on a physical machine by putting the CD/DVD in its optical drive and booting it.

I would suggest to start by reading three small chapters from the User Manual:

• 1.2. Some terminology,
• 1.7. Creating your first virtual machine and
• 1.8. Running your virtual machine.

I've reviewed the documentation. I continue to receive the startup error message: FATAL: No bootable medium found. System halted. I am trying to run a Windows 7 virtual box on a new Windows 10 machine. I have followed instructions to create a bootable DVD (WIN7Bootable.ISO is my file name). This was created by copying all the Windows installation files from an install disk and burning the ISO file using "PowerISO." I've tried it multiple times without success.

I have two unused Windows 7 installation Disks: one is Home Premium, one is Profession. Neither will boot directly. So I've been trying the PowerISO process. But no luck. Suggestions are welcome.

I am hoping to use the virtual box to run old music notation software that is no longer supported. The company is out of business and it won't run in Windows 10 (actually it kind of runs but it refuses to draw musical symbols). I will migrate to newer software but I still would like to be able to read the old files.

Thank you for any assistance you can offer.

@JohnRWhitney
John, the process that you're following will *not* result in a bootable ISO. Just like if you copy all the files of your hard disk to another hard disk, doesn't mean that the 2nd one is a bootable one. A bootable (anything) has to have special code (boot) written in specific places (sectors) of the medium in order to make it... bootable. All hard drives/ISOs contain data. Not all of them are bootable...

In your case, and since you mentioned PowerISO, you should take a look at their help page. See if you can find anything similar to "Create Image", or "Copy DVD to ISO", or something similar. Or ask them.

I tend to prefer open source, so I use imgBurn, ISODisk and WinCDEmu. All offer pretty much the same functionality, each one offers specific quirks for specific tasks. Remember that the secret is to not copy the files by hand, but to let those programs create an ISO from the source CD/DVD, making the ISO bootable.

@JohnRWhitney
Have you tried this method?
http://www.poweriso.com/tutorials/make-bootable-iso.htm

@FrodoHobbits
That actually might be a lot more confusing/convoluted, especially the "Choose the menu "Action > Boot > Add Boot Information" to load a bootable image file" part. Given that the OP has the original media, I'd suspect that creating a 1-to-1 copy/image would be the wisest option. And the safest

It isn't enough to have bootable CD, the CD needs to contain an OS installer. PowerISO ain't gonna do that for you.

It's really rather simple: if you want to boot from a DVD and install Win7, then that DVD needs to be the Win7 setup DVD. Not some random collection of files processed by randomly selected software.

But "if a thousand monkeys start typing...", you know, the whole Shakespeare thing.
Couldn't that be extended to "if you throw a thousand random files in a DVD, you might get a bootable DVD"?