Ata errors on host when booting a new VM

[rboudot]

Create a new XP VM. Boot it using an ISO image. I systematically get tons of the following error messages :

Sep 28 10:21:07 romu kernel: [20693.134119] ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
Sep 28 10:21:07 romu kernel: [20693.134126] ata1.00: BMDMA stat 0x25
Sep 28 10:21:07 romu kernel: [20693.134133] ata1.00: cmd c8/00:20:9f:2a:9c/00:00:00:00:00/e5 tag 0 dma 16384 in
Sep 28 10:21:07 romu kernel: [20693.134134]          res 51/40:20:9f:2a:9c/00:00:00:00:00/e5 Emask 0x9 (media error)
Sep 28 10:21:07 romu kernel: [20693.134138] ata1.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
Sep 28 10:21:07 romu kernel: [20693.134140] ata1.00: error: { UNC }
Sep 28 10:21:07 romu kernel: [20693.143409] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
Sep 28 10:21:07 romu kernel: [20693.143420] ata1: EH complete

I never get any disk-related error in non VirtualBox-related activity so a hardware failure seems out of scope (I checked that after deleting the VM image and creating/deleting files using the whole disk I had no error).

This situation makes VirtualBox unusable on my config since 1/ guest can't boot 2/ host is stalled when errors appear

Romu

[rboudot]

syslog with errors

[rboudot]

CORRECTION : bug title should read "ATA errors on _HOST_"

sorry !

[Sander van Leeuwen]

You're the first one to ever report such an issue. That + the description suggests you have hardware problems. VirtualBox uses your host disk quite intensively; especially during guest OS installation.

Try moving the ISO around. Maybe the errors occur when reading it.

[aeichner]

No respsone, closing.