Ubuntu – Can’t mount or unmount virtual discs- gives option for “force unmounting”

installationmount

I've installed Ubuntu (64-bit version) on a vm through VirtualBox on a Windows 7 64-bit host, but I fear that I've done something wrong. First, when I restart my computer, it just goes straight to Windows 7, as normal. Is there a separate step to have a selection menu at start-up or does this not apply for VirtualBox runs of Ubuntu?

Then, when I go to "Devices–>Install Guest Additions" within Ubuntu (running it by simply starting VB and clicking start on VB GUI for Ubuntu), I get the following error message:

Unable to mount the CD/DVD image C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso on the machine Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 64-bit. Would you like to force mounting of this medium?
Could not mount the media/drive 'C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' (VERR_PDM_MEDIA_LOCKED).

And I get a choice to "Force Unmount" the mounted ISO file within (which is indeed the VBoxGuestAdditions).

Also, when I click on the CD icon on the bottom right of the Ubuntu window so that I can "remove disk from virtual disk", I get a similar error message, except this time it says that it cannot unmount:

Unable to unmount the CD/DVD image C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso from the machine Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 64-bit. Would you like to force unmounting of this medium?
Could not unmount the currently mounted media/drive (VERR_PDM_MEDIA_LOCKED).

But when I go to the VB GUI and select "Settings" and go to Storage, I guess I can unmount from there because I get no error message. If I unmount there and then go back into Ubuntu, the virtual CD is unmounted. Any help would be awesome!

Best Answer

First, when I restart my computer, it just goes straight to Windows 7, as normal. Is there a separate step to have a selection menu at start-up or does this not apply for VirtualBox runs of Ubuntu?

That's normal. A virtual machine will not come up as an option in the physical host's boot menu. You must start the host OS and the virtual machine manager (hypervisor) before that can happen.

And I get a choice to "Force Unmount" the mounted ISO file within (which is indeed the VBoxGuestAdditions).

  • Try ejecting the virtual drive from within the OS first:

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  • You can also use sudo umount /media/title-of-cd from the terminal.
  • Then try unmounting from VirtualBox. Sometimes that may still give you the warning, but just override it so long as you ejected from Ubuntu first.

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