Black Screen on Win10 after boot before login

[MrPollard]

Running up against an issue with a Windows 10 installation that has been converted to a VM, When the instance boots Everything Visually expected happens but ends with a black screen and a white pointer with the busy wheel. No Login screen.

Found a lot of posts addressing the inverse black boot screen with the ability to login to windows and run the guest features cd. I can't get that far.

Hardware profile should be fairly similar, the host is the same machine WX was initially installed on. just moved to Linux. (More value for me to work from Linux than windows.)

Logs attached, any help much appreciated.

[MrPollard]

Attempted to boot into safe mode, no dice, same black screen no login.

[socratis]

a Windows 10 installation that has been converted to a VM

How?

the same machine WX

WX? What's a "WX"? Please tell me you don't seriously mean "Win10"...

[MrPollard]

a Windows 10 installation that has been converted to a VM

How?

Created a vmdk from an existing disk using vboxmanage.

the same machine WX

WX? What's a "WX"? Please tell me you don't seriously mean "Win10"...

You can't seriously expect me to type Win10 over and over...

[socratis]

Created a vmdk from an existing disk using vboxmanage.

VBoxManage... what exactly? Raw-disk access? Convert? Which exact command did you use? We'd love to have the details, otherwise we have no clue what we're dealing with here...

You can't seriously expect me to type Win10 over and over...

If you're the only person ever to use "WX" to describe "Windows 10" or "Win10" for short, then yes, I kind of do because it's not being used, by anyone so far.

May I suggest that you use Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V? It's easier compared to typing "WX"

[MrPollard]

Created a vmdk from an existing disk using vboxmanage.

VBoxManage... what exactly? Raw-disk access? Convert? Which exact command did you use? We'd love to have the details, otherwise we have no clue what we're dealing with here...

I created a vmdk using

Code: Select all

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "Development/Local/VMs/VHDs/WinX.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/sdb

Initially, I ran into a number of problems getting past the windows boot loader. I don't recall all the errors, but each time the result was the same, "windows would fail to boot I would attempt a different form of automated boot-repair from an iso or live cd in the host or from the 3 strike boot rules, each time failing with a very generic error."
Eventually, I used enough of my google fu that I found a method of manual repair which scanned for windows installs and rebuilt the windows bootloader. This yielded much better results, I got the blue windows logo and the spinner, and eventually a black screen with a white mouse pointer and the blue round spinner. After that... nothing. I interpret the mouse pointer and spinner as windows has partially booted it's just having some trouble I suspect a driver or something just not sure. I saw that people have had to install the Guest Additions CD but I can't get to a point where there I can interact with the cd after it has been "inerted". Also I get the same result using minimal safe mode.

May I suggest that you use Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V? It's easier compared to typing "WX"

A Win10 Hot Key Might be warranted.

[MrPollard]

Found my issue but have been unable to find a fix, seems this driver
BOOTLOG_NOT_LOADED \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\dxgkrnl.sys
is not loading and causing the system to hang, It looks like you can add and remove drivers through DISM but I haven't quite figured out the right way to mount an image for editing.

[HF]

Mr Pollard,
I was having the same problem this morning with a VM that had worked just yesterday. I had a saved copy from the previous morning, so I tried it and yet still had the same "black screen" when it finished booting.

From a comment that I found in another forum post, I turned off the 3D acceleration and the login screen worked. No idea why it stopped working to begin with.

This is with Windows 10 guest and Virtual Box 6.0.4

[socratis]

@HF,
I appreciate your enthusiasm and your attitude towards helping!

But the OP (MrPollard) is having quite a different problem apparently, we'll have to investigate it further...

[MrPollard]

3D and 2D video acceleration, in this case, have no effect. Tried with both on, both off, either one on and the other off, always the same black screen. Thanks for the input though @HF.

This past Thursday I began going through and removing the Nvidia driver packages through the rescue prompt, found a way to output the list to a text file and then use DISM to remove them. I'm kind of blindly hoping that this will trigger windows to use a generic default video driver. This has yet to happen, got part way through my search and had to divert my attention elsewhere.

[mpack]

VirtualBox 6.0.0 is by definition the buggiest possible member of the v6 branch, so I would certainly try updating it.

I'd also install the extension pack.

Also there's a good chance that if the P2V was from a modern PC then it perhaps used an EFI BIOS, and/or an incompatible SATA controller.

It would be a step forward if you can boot in safe mode. According to this page you can force Win10 into safe mode by holding down the shift key while it boots.

[mpack]

Hmm. I just tried that shift key method and it did nothing.

I so happens that my company IT guy was in my office so I asked him for suggestions: the main one was to boot the VM from a Win10 install ISO in the proper class (home/pro etc), and choose to repair the installation.

[MrPollard]

Yea I've tried to do a repair from an ISO and it just kicks out to the rescue console and fails, I've also tried to do an upgrade and it wants to run from inside an existing install.