Virtual Box issues

[vendic]

So I have a win2k with SP4 in a VM in VirtualBox 5.0 that only runs in safe mode.
It gets the BSoD in a normal start.
I've done basic starts with limited services etc in normal mode and it still dies.

The problem is that I need to get new data in and out of the virtual machine and because I'm stuck in safe mode, I can't even load drivers to give me access to physical devices. I spent all day on this today. Very frustrating.

Any ideas on a workaround for this?

[Cyborg Girl]

Oh hey, I also run Win2k in Virtualbox.

You should probably try this first:

Code: Select all

VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/PDM/HaltOnReset" 1

This will let you see what the BSOD message is, so you can do further Googling and diagnostics.

I'm gonna hazard a guess though, that this is an issue with some third party driver. I have never seen Win2k crash on a VM myself.

[vendic]

I don't have any 3rd party drivers installed.
it's a plain vanilla setup.

I can't get your command line to work either.
I put my vm name in and path but it says it can't find it.

I had no problems for a long time but this vm has been on three different machines now. Chances are I have a corruption.

[vendic]

It seems I have a few services that refuse to start.
They shouldn't give a BSoD and they might be not starting because I'm in safe mode, even though I am trying to force start them.
I can't run chkdsk because it can't unlock the drive (it's formatted NTFS).
It doesn't run chkdsk on next boot when I tell it to.

Slowly going insane here...ooops, years too late apparently.
Why oh why didn't I just become a potato farmer?

[Sigma_Orionis]

Try disabling Hardware virtualization in the VM settings

I've had issues like that with Win2K on older versions of Virtual Box.

Maybe VMware Workstation PLayer might be more compatible (it's free for personal use).

[Swift]

Is this what you guys mean by a virtual box?

[Sigma_Orionis]

I guess that in this case we're certain Schrodinger's Cat is alive

[Cyborg Girl]

GYAH
FLUFFY KITTY IS SO CUTE
<3 <3 <3

Thank you @Swift, I needed that.

[vendic]

lol

Didn't resolve anything though.
I tried the suggestions. I had the hardware visualization disabled anyway as part of the standard debug procedure.
Still no clue as to what the problem is.

[Cyborg Girl]

@vendic

Can you tell me the specific BSOD error message? That usually helps, though such messages tend to be damnably vague.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Good Idea

[Sigma_Orionis]

dude, do you happen to have an old copy of that VM or the Win2000 install disk?

[vendic]

dude, do you happen to have an old copy of that VM or the Win2000 install disk?

That was my next go to, but the files on it are also old. I use the VM to do electronics design work. So I'd need to also get the old files updated etc.

Screen shot of the error.

As I said, it works fine in safe mode but always fails after the win2k screen loads with this error.

[Cyborg Girl]

@vendic

Got Symantec PCAnywhere installed on the VM?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/811014

If you don't have any Symantec stuff installed, take a look at msconfig, and see what's running outside safe mode. In the absence of PCAnywhere I suspect this might be an issue with e.g. the Virtualbox VNC driver, or suchlike.

[vendic]

I don't have PC anywhere installed.

I've downloaded msconfig (comes with Xp not w2k) and configured it for minimal drivers etc.
Still fails.
Only works in full safe mode.

Trying to get the original vm from the old PC now.
It's 15g so I can't place it onto a USB stick (4g max file limit).
Tried transferring across the wireless twice, it failed.

Getting a USB HDD docking station and transferring it to that.
I might also try to reduce the vm size to under 4G.

Oh, the original file was in Microsoft Virtual PC.

I'm now running Virtual Box. But iirc (taken with lyme issues may not be so reliable) it did work in virtual Box previously.

[vendic]

So I got a w2k ISO disc install and repaired the installation.
It comes back with COM+ error, can't start it bla bla bla.

Which is kind of weird since the repair basically deleted and reinstalled the OS files and as far as I know, COM+ was part of the w2k OS.

In any case, nothing I did would fix it so I installed another w2k VM and an XP vm and transferred my files to them.
Now I'm running both XP and w2k. I'd prefer XP as the video drivers allow going to 1280x1024 while w2k limits me to VGA.
But, XP has issues with the mouse pointer integration in the package I'm using making it unworkable. I'll be trying to fix that tomorrow.
So far, three days on this just to get it to the point where I'm ready to have a system that I can work on.

[vendic]

And sorted out the mouse issues.
Some weird problem using dual displays when the (windows) monitor resolution is set less than the DOS VESA selected mode.
It only happened on the secondary display and only under those conditions.
Works great now.

Thanks for the help.
I'm now ready to start designing.

[SciFiFisher]

All I know is that when I needed a dual OS on my MAC I actually had to pay someone to do it. Because, even when I followed the destructions the install process for a dual install on a MAC would not work. Does that help you any?

[Sigma_Orionis]

Hmmm to late of any use, (been up to my nose with work) but the reason I asked Zee was that if it was a software issue, you could just reinstall Windows 2000 from the CD on a new VM and use the old VM disk as a secondary disk and pull off the data. In any case, glad to hear you sorted that mess out.

[vendic]

Did pretty much that except I used safe mode with networking and setup a shared folder rather than set it up as a secondary drive.
Virtualbox does have issues with the mouse in dual screen setups depending on the resolutions selected. Very weird.