virtualbox.org

]Hi team,

I've done my best to read up on this issue, but the blinking / flashing cursor issue search takes over and those reported fixes are not related to my problem.

I have a physical laptop running Endless OS (Ubuntu GNOME basically). I create a full disk image of this using clonezilla. I have restored the image to my vdi using clonezilla. Again, all appears OK.

When I go to boot, however, I cannot get past the flashing cursor at boot. If I take a .iso file of Endless OS straight from the website, the VM boots fine, so it must be related to how Clonezilla images my VDI (right?).

Anyways, I've tried to boot the VM to ubuntu and DD, use the clonezilla GUI for disk to disk, use the clonezilla image to take sda3 from the physical machine to sda2 on the virtual box and nothing has worked.

Can anyone help? Here is the log. [attachment=0]VBox.zip[/attachment


Thank you!!!!!

As a quick follow-up, I just attempted creating a .VDI from a .img file. I created the .img file by booting to Ubuntu live media and DD the internal SDA drive to an external drive. I then used vboxmanage back on my windows machine to create a .VDI - I replaced the SATA Port 0 to point at this .VDI, still no boot.

So is the issue with my Physical Machine?

You're using the VboxSVGA video card, which is for Windows guests. VMSVGA is for Linux.

However, your guest log shows no activity after Virtualbox attempts to boot from the guest disk.

EndlessOS is based on Debian. You chose Ubuntu for the guest type. Ubuntu is based on Debian, also, but there is a Debian guest type too. Try that?

You are trying a P2V, for 'physical to virtual'. Try web-searching:

Debian P2V site:forums.virtualbox.org

P2V requires taking all the physical disk's partitions and the MBR.

thank you very kindly scottgus1 -- I've run through all the video card options and none worked. EndlessOS straight from the Endless website also worked fine on the Ubuntu machine. I found the P2V ubuntu instructions on the forums here and tried this: Convert IMG to VDI for VirtualBox 2018 (on YouTube)

However, I did just at least work around this issue which I have been banging my head against the wall for. I had to enable EFI boot: if you google search "VDI doesn't boot up, bios efi" Veritas has the first response and it has my solution.

Do you have any idea why I needed to do that or what that means about my physical machine? I run a nonprofit that brings computers to prisons so we use this wonky device from Justice Tech Solutions called a Securebook (i can't post links as a new member to the forums)

Is there something about that device's BIOS that is incorrect?

worldpossible wrote:I did just at least work around this issue .... I had to enable EFI boot

My guess is if the original PC was EFI, the cloned OS would have to boot EFI too. It isn't necessarily a problem, it's just what is required. No issues with the original PC appear to me. Sounds like a 'end justifies the means' incident.

Glad you're up and running!