VirtualBox 3.2 – New Guests Unbootable

I recently installed virtualbox 3.2, and all my old machines worked fine, while I cannot create any new ones. I have ubuntu host 10.4 (lucid) and I’ve been trying to create additional ubuntu hosts. The machine keeps crashing on first boot. Some times I get a kernel panic, some times, I just get stuck on a cursor.

I finally got a hint from this page (apparently Win7 doesn’t like 3.2 as well). The problem is the default harddrive configuration. If you have older virtual machines made under Virtualbox 3.1, you’ll notice that you HD is installed via an IDE controller. In 3.2, the default behaviour is to create your HD via SATA controller. The solution is simple, after going through the “wizard,” before doing the install:

1. go into your storage settings, and
2. remove the HD from the SATA controller (you can remove the SATA controller all together), and
3. go to the CD-rom’s controller, and click on the “+” HD icon, and add the VDI as the “IDE Primary IDE Master.” Most likely your virtual CD-rom is already configure as the “IDE Secondary IDE Master,”

Here is a screenshot of my settings:

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