Guru Meditation when removing CD

[NikonTheThird]

Steps to reproduce: 1.) Create a new VM. Leave the default settings but you don't have to create a hard drive. 2.) Download the Ubuntu 12.10 Minimal CD Image: ​http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/mini.iso 3.) Start the VM and select the mini.iso as boot medium. 4.) When in the Installer Boot Menu, remove the CD from the virtual drive. 5.) Press ESC. You should now see a "boot:" prompt. 6.) Press ENTER. Voila.

[Frank Mehnert]

Not able to reproduce. Could you verify that you downloaded the correct bits for that .iso image? If the image is corrupted in a certain way, the result could be the error you got.

[Frank Mehnert]

No response, closing.

[NikonTheThird]

Sorry for responding so late, I forgot about that. Also, I will try to use the correct formatting now.

I have two different machines to try this:

• Lenovo ThinkPad x121e with Windows 8
• Desktop PC (Core i7, GTX 670) with Windows 7

I can reproduce the problem I described with both of them. I also re-downloaded the linked image. Strangely, when using a different image (Lubuntu 13.04 beta 2 x86) it doesn't happen.

I'll repeat the steps here in more detail just in case:

1. I create a new VM and leave every option as it is, except I choose not to create a hard drive.
2. Next, I started the VM and when I got asked what to put in the CD drive, i choose this image: ​http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/mini.iso
3. I ended up in a screen titled: Installer Boot Menu
4. I removed the disk from the virtual drive via the Devices menu. The screen is still showing the Installer Boot Menu
5. Then I pressed the ESC key and ended up in a black screen with a "boot: _" prompt
6. Finally I pressed the Enter key here with no CD in the drive, and I get a small window titled: "VirtualBox - Guru Meditation"

As mentioned before, this happens only with this ISO file. The ISO works otherwise fine, I can use it to boot from it and install a system.

I am really sorry for responding so late. Is there anything I can do to help any further?

PS: I'm using VirtualBox 4.2.12 now.

[Mihai Hanor]

I can also reproduce it, by following the steps described above. Host Windows 7 x64.

[Frank Mehnert]

I can reproduce your problem but I'm not convinced that this is really a VirtualBox bug. When you remove the CD, the guest is not able to execute any code. My guess is that on a real PC bad things would happen as well.

[Mihai Hanor]

The issue is a minor one, indeed, you'll not encounter it often. But VirtualBox should handle the situation in a safer manner. At least, the VM is not recoverable from Guru Meditation. You have to close the VM session and restart it.

[Frank Mehnert]

It depends what happens on real hardware. I believe that a real PC would hang.

[Mihai Hanor]

A hardware hang? Even if a real PC would hang, here we are using emulated devices.

[Frank Mehnert]

No, I'm not talking about a hardware hang but about a software hang. I've just tested the iso image on two real PCs. The first PC shows some error message not really related to the problem but the second PC shows some EDD: error and after that it does not respond anymore. And during a short analysis in VBox we saw that the guest is executing some random code. So the Guru Meditation is a quite perfect error handling because there is nothing the hardware / VirtualBox can do.

We will do some small improvement eventually: The message box will get a 'reset' button to allow the user to reset the VM.