Mac – How to solve the issue of VirtualBox showing a VM with UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

virtual machinevirtualbox

I downloaded some VM images for VirtualBox from

https://dev.windows.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/mac/

and extracted the files, and set up a new VM on VirtualBox 5.0.12 using the extracted .vmdk file. The IE 11 on Windows 7 worked fine, but since I installed something, I thought I would install another copy of the VM which is fresh, so I extracted the files again and tried to use another copy of the .vmdk file to set up another VM.

But VirtualBox complained that it is the same UUID and can't create another VM, so I tried instead and used the IE 10 for Win 7 image instead (not IE 11, but IE 10).

And then VirtualBox would boot up the VM and after 1.5 minutes or so, show the blue screen on the VM:

enter image description here

It seems like it is related to that UUID issue. So I rebooted my Mac, and now set up a new VM using "IE 9 on Win 7", and this VM also have the same issue of UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME. So I think somehow, VirtualBox ran into some issue and didn't set up the VM correct from this point on. I rebooted the Mac and restarted the VM and it is the same blue screen. How can this be solved?

I also tried chmod -R a+rw for all the files for the extracted .vmdk file and for all the new files that VirtualBox created, so that all files have write permission for everybody, but that didn't solve the problem.

Best Answer

I want to provide some insight as to what might be the case with UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

With those .zip files provided, if you use Mac's default zip program to unzip it (by just double clicking on the zip file on OS X El Capitan), then it will first create a .ova file, and then it will immediately uncompress again, to 2 files: one .vmdk file and one .ovf.

Now, you cannot use those .vmdk files as is. You have to double click on .ovf for it to be opened by VirtualBox, and then it will clone the .vmdk image and make it into a VM.

I think you can also use something like the 3rd party Unarchiver, and unzip it, and it will create a .ova file from the .zip file. In this case, also just double click it for VirtualBox to use it, and I think in this case it also would not have the UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME problem.

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