VirtualBox to be used with Genymotion to be used with Android Studio : Fatal: no bootable medium found

Question

I’m have some trouble with VirtualBox. I put VirtualBox on my PC (Toshiba Satellite, 64 bit os, 8GB RAM, 455GB disk space, Windows 8.1) because I’m attempting to use Genymotion with Android Studio. However, after creating the VM and attempting to run it, I receive this message in the VirtualBox command, Fatal: no bootable medium found! System Halted.

These are the steps I’ve taken to create the VM:

1. Open Oracle VM VB Manager, select new.
2. Create VM window opens, Name and Operating system: my name is OracleVMVBCRW, my type is Microsoft Windows, version is Windows 8 (64 bit).
3. Memory size is 2048MB.
4. Hard drive is Create virtual hard drive now.
5. Hard drive file type is VDI(VirtualBox Disk Image).
6. Storage on physical hard drive is Dynamically allocated.
7. File location and size is OracleVMVBCRW, 25GB.

This creates the VM in my VB Manager. I select start, The OrcaleVMVBCRW window opens, with a VB Information window in front, the information window contains content about Auto capture Keyboard options turned on, I select OK. Then the select start-up disk window opens, the field is populated with Host Drive ‘D:’, next to it there is a folder icon, I select it and I can see the OrcaleVMVBCRW folder, I open it, it is empty when the file field is set to All virtual optical disk files(*.dmg *.iso .cdr), if I change the file selector to All files(), I can then see the OracleVNVBCRW, Type VirtualBox Machine Definition (.vbox); the Orcale VMVBCRW.vbox-prev, Type VBOX-PREV File (.vbox-prev), the OracaleVMVBCRW, Type Virtual Disk Image (.vdi). Their respective paths are: C:\Users\Reed\VirtualBox VMs\OracleVMVBCRW. I select OracaleVMVBCRW, Type Virtual Disk Image (.vdi), and open, but the VB-Error window appears with this message: Failed to open the CD/DV image C:\Users\Reed\VirtualBox VMs\OracleVMVBCRW.vdi, and below this, The medium ‘C:\Users\Reed\VirtualBox VMs\OracleVMVBCRW.vdi’ can’t be used as the requested device type.

If I select the details icon I find:

Result Code:    E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component:  Medium
Interface:  IMedium {29989373-b111-4654-8493-2e1176cba890}
Callee:     IVirtualBox {3b2f08eb-b810-4715-bee0-bb06b9880ad2}
Callee RC:  VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80BB0001)

I select OK and return to the Select start-up disk window, once again with the field populated with Host Drive ‘D:’, I select start. The OracleVMVBCRW[Running]- Oracle VM VB window appears and after a few seconds, in a command line style is displays, Fatal: no bootable medium found! System Halted. I close the window, the Close VM window appears, I select Power off the machine and OK.

Back in the VM VB manager I have tried the following trouble shooting methods:

1) Settings window, Storage, storage tree, add new CD/DVD drive to controller: IDE, Choose disk icon, the Please choose a virtual optical disk file window opens, in it, the folder Logs, it’s address: C:\Users\Reed\VirtualBox VMs\OracleVMVBCRW, I open it, it is empty, file type is set to All virtual optical disk files(*.dmg *.iso .cdr), I change the file type to All files(), I then see VBox, Type Text Document (.log), I know this will not work. In the Please choose a virtual optical disk file window, I select This PC, and search for OracleVMVBCRW, I here find many OracleVMVNCRW files and folders, I select the red cube or the OracleVMVBCRW, type Virtual Disk Image(.vdi), select open(the file type next to open is still set to All files(*)). I once again receive the same VirtualBox-Error as above.

2) Back in OracleVMVNCRW-Settings, now is system, I uncheck Floppy so that only CD/DVD and Hard Disk remain checked, and additionally Chipset is set to PIIX3, Extended Features: Enable IO APIC and Enable Absolute point device are checked. Then back to Storage, add new CD/DVD drive to controller IDE, Leave empty, highlight Empty, select choose virtual disk icon, select OracleVMVBCRW.vdi, same error message. Try again, this time with Live CD/DVD checked, same error message. All of the attempts in 2 have been made while CD/DVD Drive is set to IDE Primary Master.

One additional question, if I select a VM in my VM VB manager, right click, Remove, and select Delete all files, will this remove all traces of this VM from my computer and return the resources it was using? If not what are ways of removing all aspects of a VM and returning used resources?

Thank you.

Answer 1

You have no OS installed in your VM. Creating a VM with a new virtual disk in VirtualBox manager just creates an empty virtual drive with nothing on it. You have to install something or point it an an existing image of some sort. It's just as if you had installed an empty hard drive in your PC and tried to boot.

That said, if you have installed Genymotion and want to set up some VMs as Android Studio targets, you shouldn't have to do anything directly with VirtualBox. In fact, Genymotion VMs cannot be created directly with VirtualBox because the images have to be first downloaded by the Genymotion launcher. Once downloaded, Genymotion takes care of creating the necessary vbox files and images. Just open the launcher, press the Add (+) button (shown below) and follow the prompts. When done, use the Start (>) button to launch the VM. Under normal circumstances, you'll never see or have to use VirtualBox directly.

As far as removing a VM through the VirtualBox Manager, yes, if you select Delete All Files, the entire directory and everything in it will be gone.