# Trouble Getting Virtualbox machine to boot



## jnnewton (May 26, 2017)

I've set up a Virtualbox VM (Windows XP) with a hard disk image (.vdi) that was previously used on a Windows 7 host.  When setting up the new VM on FreeBSD, everything seemed to go fine, I can start the machine, with `service vboxheadless start` and then check status with `service vboxheadless status` which shows it running. I can also VNC to the new VM, where I'm greeted with a Windows XP error message to the effect of an improper shutdown, and choices to boot in safe modes or normally.  It freezes after choosing any selected.  If I then run `service vboxheadless stop` that also freezes until I CTRL-C to get a prompt and then `ps aux | grep VBoxManage` shows me that there is still the following running:
`root    2054    0.0  0.1  111972  15204  1  S    15:46      0:02.93 /usr/local/lib/virtualbox/VBoxManage controlvm winxp_ms savestate`.  So I cannot stop it either (note, i have tried running and stopping as another user too, this was an attempt with root to eliminate possible permissions issues).   I thought I had somehow damaged the .vdi file, but upon returning it to my windows 7 machine, it booted without issue.

Here is the .vbox file:

```
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!--
** DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE.
** If you make changes to this file while any VirtualBox related application
** is running, your changes will be overwritten later, without taking effect.
** Use VBoxManage or the VirtualBox Manager GUI to make changes.
-->
<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.virtualbox.org/" version="1.15-freebsd">
  <Machine uuid="{92a47b52-63b8-4600-8a9d-5cd36989c279}" name="winxp_msoa" OSType="WindowsXP" snapshotFolder="/zfile/vm/virtualbox/winxp_ms/Snapshots" l
astStateChange="2017-05-26T20:38:49Z" aborted="true">
    <MediaRegistry>
      <HardDisks>
        <HardDisk uuid="{8286956f-3fd3-456c-bd5b-33306d25e511}" location="/zfile/vm/virtualbox/winxp_ms/winxp_ms.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal"/>
      </HardDisks>
    </MediaRegistry>
    <Hardware>
      <CPU>
        <PAE enabled="true"/>
        <LongMode enabled="false"/>
        <HardwareVirtExLargePages enabled="true"/>
      </CPU>
      <Memory RAMSize="512"/>
      <Paravirt provider="Default"/>
      <RemoteDisplay>
        <VRDEProperties>
          <Property name="TCP/Address" value="192.168.2.53"/>
        </VRDEProperties>
      </RemoteDisplay>
      <Network>
        <Adapter slot="0" enabled="true" MACAddress="08002798DAF4" cable="true" type="82543GC">
          <NAT/>
        </Adapter>
        <Adapter slot="1" cable="true" type="82543GC"/>
        <Adapter slot="2" cable="true" type="82543GC"/>
        <Adapter slot="3" cable="true" type="82543GC"/>
        <Adapter slot="4" cable="true" type="82543GC"/>
        <Adapter slot="5" cable="true" type="82543GC"/>
        <Adapter slot="6" cable="true" type="82543GC"/>
        <Adapter slot="7" cable="true" type="82543GC"/>
      </Network>
      <LPT>
        <Port slot="1" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="7"/>
      </LPT>
      <AudioAdapter driver="OSS" enabled="true"/>
    </Hardware>
    <StorageControllers>
      <StorageController name="IDE Controller" type="PIIX4" PortCount="2" useHostIOCache="true" Bootable="true">
        <AttachedDevice type="HardDisk" hotpluggable="false" port="0" device="0">
          <Image uuid="{8286956f-3fd3-456c-bd5b-33306d25e511}"/>
        </AttachedDevice>
      </StorageController>
    </StorageControllers>
  </Machine>
</VirtualBox>
```

I would like some help determining why this machine may not boot properly on FreeBSD.


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## jnnewton (May 27, 2017)

I have located the problem, this post is for future searchers.   If, at the time of installation of the OS, the --acpi option was set to on, it must be set on always.  Windows apparently installs differently.   After setting acpi on with `vboxmanage --modifyvm winxp_ms --acpi on` i was able to boot the machine and not recieve the error message above.


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