Installation of Windows 2000 Professional guest results in spontaneous reboots.

[bifferos]

Host OS: Slackware Linux 64-bit Host CPU: quad core I7-2600 @3.4GHz Guest: Windows 2000 professional, with default guest settings for win2k

I'm sure I've installed Windows 2000 without issue in the past. The guest reboots occur somewhere around the hardware detection phase,the exact point at which it happens seems to vary. I've just got myself a somewhat more powerful host, so a change in timing could also be the issue. The system runs very fast at any rate so I wonder if this could be triggering the win2k installer bug (see qemu -win2k-hack option).

[Frank Mehnert]

Do you have a VBox.log for such a session available?

[bifferos]

Log of win2k install session rebooting during the "Installing Components" phase

[bifferos]

Note that the reboot was not during device detection, but installing components. All settings where defaults, both for win2k and Virtual box (default memory for win2k, default disk size, expanding disk etc...).

[bifferos]

Log of successful install of windows 2000

[bifferos]

I was a bit paranoid about my win2k ISO being corrupt, so I tried with the same image on another system. Installation completed OK. The VBox version is the same, 4.1.2, but host setup is:

a) Significantly slower b) 32-bits c) An earlier linux kernel version (2.6.33.4) d) Running off an IDE drive

See VBox.2.log for details.

I will try some more combinations if I get time.

[bifferos]

There is the following work-around:

1. Install win2k as normal, but when the random reboot occurs during "Installing Components" power off the VM.
2. Change CPU execution cap to 10%
3. Power up again, and let the install complete. You will have to enter any license key and go through some setup dialogs again.
4. Power off the machine
5. Remove the execution cap, normal win2k booting and use appears to be OK without it.

It's quite possible a higher execution cap can be used. Note you do *not* want to start win2k execution with an execution cap of 10% since the text mode "windows is copying files" stage will take some time!

[JorisSpekreijse]

This problem does still occurs under version 4.1.8 where the host is Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits and Linux OpenSUSE 12.1 64bits.