cannot get bootable Windows Me CD to install OS on new guest OS

[jkrouse2]

I have used Workstation for years and never had a problem creating various Windows virtual machines and installing the OS's: 98SE and XP, perhaps Me as well. I currently have one XP machine working and have been trying to set up an Me machine. The machine is created and here are the problems I am having starting from the bootable CD:

1) DOS starts up and says "missing operating system" - I am guessing that the virtual CD drive is wrong (a problem I've had before) so I power off the virtual machine and re-open it, changing the CD-ROM from 'auto detect' to the only option it gives me, "E." (I don't know why it doesn't list D as an option.)

2) same problem - missing OS. I try to re-open but it doesn't work. I try creating the VM again: bridged networking, disk size 8 GB, I start the machine with the Me bootable CD in the drive.

3) First error message: "Cannot connect virtual device floppy0. No corresponding device is available on the host." Since I have no need of a floppy (and my laptop doesn't have one), I select NO for attempting a search for a floppy.

4) I come to the Windows Me Startup Menu and select 2 (start computer w/ CD-ROM support). Nothing boots, but I run scandisk (no problems found) and then change directories to D and type SETUP.EXE. Setup tries to initialize but says "cannot create a temporary directory" and says I have to create an MS-DOS partition to set up Windows. I note that the CD is in virtual drive D although (see above) I had set it to E. I close the machine and change the CD-ROM back to "auto detect." I restart the machine.

5) I get it again: "missing operating system." I create a new VM with the CD-ROM on "auto detect" just to make sure, but after I select "startup w cd rom support," I get this error: "drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition."

I cannot figure out what the problem is here!

[admin]

In step 4, before running setup, you may need to run 'fdisk'.

[admin]

See this Microsoft KB article.

[jkrouse2]

Unfortunately this article doesn't give me any direction as to what is the problem.

[jkrouse2]

I have also tried that. After I run fdisk, when I restart the VM it just goes to 'missing operating system.'

[admin]

After running fdisk, the BIOS will attempt to boot from the hard disk, which has no operating system installed. Press ESC on the BIOS splash screen and select the CD-ROM as the boot device. If necessary, you can add the following to your VM configuration file to give you more time to hit ESC:

bios.bootdelay = 3000

[jkrouse2]

How do I change the configuration file? I can't find that.

In any case I do recall what you're saying about hitting some key at startup to select a different boot device. What happens is, I start the VM and the screen goes black for several seconds, during which time I repeatedly hit ESC (I also tried CTRL, F2, and F8) -- nothing I hit stops the boot from C:

[admin]

How do I change the configuration file? I can't find that.

It looks like you are running Workstation on Windows, right? First, exit the Workstation GUI, so that the old configuration cannot be cached. Find the folder where your Windows ME VM is stored, and look for the .vmx file. If you called your VM "winME," it would be "winME.vmx." Open this file with notepad and add the new configuration option to the end of the file. Save the file, exit notepad, and restart Workstation. It should give you an extra 3 seconds to hit ESC. You can use larger values of bootdelay if you need even more time.

[jkrouse2]

Hi, sorry I didn't get back to you, I didn't receive an email notification.

Well I've done as you suggested. What happens is that after I change the bootdelay, VMWare won't let me open that machine: "You do not have access rights to this file." I tried going into permissions for the file and folder where that machine is saved, and it appears I have full permissions. Just as a test, I created an Me machine, ran fdisk, closed VMWare, and tried to re-open that machine, and it did so with no problem. I thought maybe I am entering 'bios.bootdelay' in the wrong location - note that the file is .vmxf, not .vmx (there is no .vmx file). Also note that for some reason my XP maching (working fine) was somehow created in a different directory called "Documents/My Virtual Machines" -- as opposed to where Workstation wants to create the Me machine (in Documents/Virtual Machines). I have tried creating the Me machine in both places though and get the same results.

[admin]

The .vmxf file is the wrong place to add this option. If you don't have a .vmx file, perhaps you have a .cfg file?

[jkrouse2]

Well although I did as you suggested and the delay is working, it doesn't allow me to enter boot setup while the VM is starting. It just goes to 'missing operating system.'

[admin]

Are you clicking inside the VM console window to shift keyboard focus to the VM before pressing ESC?

Once you get the missing operating system message, you should be able to reset the VM with CTRL-ALT-INSERT, and then you can press ESC to get the boot device menu.