> I sure hope someone can give me a clue what to try next.
>
> I'm running xp-pro on an AMD machine that's about 3 years old. I had
> vpc 2007 installed and a win98se vm that I was using to do database
> work. I had a copy of the same vm on a vista business machine.
>
> Anyway a couple of months ago I shut down the 98se and when I tried to
> open it a week later it comes up with a black screen and refused to
> even close. The vista machine vm is fine. I tried everything I could
> think of but could not get it to do any more.
>
> Today I discovered that sp1 is out on vpc 2007 so I downloaded and
> installed it on the amd machine, then copied the vhd from the vista
> machine and tried it with the update-- same results, black screen will
> not boot from a floppy or a cd. I checked and the vhd still works fine
> on vista. I was afraid to install sp1 on my vista machine because I
> use an xp-pro vm for most of my work and can't afford to have it
> disturbed. I tried to boot the vm from BartPE to see if I could see
> what was going on but no luck. The cd never lights up. I can boot the
> whole machine from the cd with no problem--same with my old 98se full
> install cd. I guess I could try to install 98 in a new vm -- but this
> looks crazy.
>
> Finally I uninstalled vpc2007, reset my machine then installed sp1
> fresh. When I started it, it found the same two vm's I had before -- a
> win98 vm and an old win95 vm which I installed to test an old game but
> never have used since. Same results -- a black screen. But at least I
> have the option of closing the vm and don't have to force it closed
> with task manager.
>
> I guess I'll try to install 98se from scratch and see if that works.
> Any ideas would be certainly welcome.

> Did you say the original 98se VM that doesn't work on the XP machine
> does work on the Vista machine?
>
> My initial thought would be what did you install/uninstall on the XP
> machine between the time yo last successfully started the Win98se VM
> and then could no longer get it to start. Microsoft patches? Beta
> versions of anything? New Hardware? New drivers? New games?
>
> You indicated that you were able to start the VM using a BartPE disk,
> but that the hard drive wasn't seen. Take a look at your
> configuration, detach the hard drive and reattach it to a
> different/new VM, does it see it?
>
> "Joe H" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
> news:(email address - cut out)...
> > Joe H wrote:
> >

> Joe H wrote:
>
>> I sure hope someone can give me a clue what to try next.
>>
>> I'm running xp-pro on an AMD machine that's about 3 years old. I had
>> vpc 2007 installed and a win98se vm that I was using to do database
>> work. I had a copy of the same vm on a vista business machine.
>>
>> Anyway a couple of months ago I shut down the 98se and when I tried to
>> open it a week later it comes up with a black screen and refused to
>> even close. The vista machine vm is fine. I tried everything I could
>> think of but could not get it to do any more.
>>
>> Today I discovered that sp1 is out on vpc 2007 so I downloaded and
>> installed it on the amd machine, then copied the vhd from the vista
>> machine and tried it with the update-- same results, black screen will
>> not boot from a floppy or a cd. I checked and the vhd still works fine
>> on vista. I was afraid to install sp1 on my vista machine because I
>> use an xp-pro vm for most of my work and can't afford to have it
>> disturbed. I tried to boot the vm from BartPE to see if I could see
>> what was going on but no luck. The cd never lights up. I can boot the
>> whole machine from the cd with no problem--same with my old 98se full
>> install cd. I guess I could try to install 98 in a new vm -- but this
>> looks crazy.
>>
>> Finally I uninstalled vpc2007, reset my machine then installed sp1
>> fresh. When I started it, it found the same two vm's I had before -- a
>> win98 vm and an old win95 vm which I installed to test an old game but
>> never have used since. Same results -- a black screen. But at least I
>> have the option of closing the vm and don't have to force it closed
>> with task manager.
>>
>> I guess I'll try to install 98se from scratch and see if that works.
>> Any ideas would be certainly welcome.
>
>
> More: I can't install anything in the vm on this machine. It will not
> see the disks. Even an xp-pro vm will not load but just gives the same
> black screen. What can go wrong with hardware that will not let any
> virtual machines run but doesn't seem to bother anything else? Since it
> happened suddenly it does seem like something must have broken on the
> machine but what could it be?
>
> This is really strange. I just bought parallels because it supports usb
> but I can't install anything in it on this machine either. The computer
> seems to work fine otherwise. Surely my nod32 couldn't be stopping it
> from running? I'll try turning it off long enough to test that. -- Did
> not help! I am running as administrator.
>
> So the problem has to be what hardware failure could prevent vpc and
> parallels from loading a vm or from booting from a cd or floppy but
> doesn't seem to have any effect on anything else in the machine? The
> machine itself will boot from the 98 floppy and from the 98CD or the
> Bartpe cd. I'll run a memory test just in case but I would think that
> would cause tons of other problems as well.
>
> --
>

>More on topic. I was able to install 98se in parallels on xp-home
>machine. Extremely sloooooow install but it worked. Had to use diskette
>and cd image, however to get it to start. Feel certain vpc2007 would
>work there as well.
>
>Also able to install same in parallels on vista. Much faster because
>machine is much faster but still takes a long time. Again could not
>load directly from diskette or cd.
>
>Setup same image files of cd and fdd on xp-pro machine and it pops up a
>black screen and never does any more. Certainly does not load the
>floppy image. So this most likely is not xp sp3 upgrade fault unless
>that is very different on xp-pro. I ran memory test with memtest86 and
>it found no problems with memory after running for an hour.
>
>So now to summarize the problem: cannot load ANY vm's on my amd64
>xp-pro (32-bit os) machine. It has 2-gigs of memory. Vpc2007 and
>parallels will not load the floppy disk or even an xp pro cd to create
>a vm. Existing vm's will not load but are stuck at a black screen (have
>to shut down with task manager). I uninstalled and reinstalled vpc2007
>to no avail. I installed vpc2007 sp1 to no avail. No other symptoms
>that I know of. I can load my full Delphi 2007 ide with no difficulties
>or errors encountered.
>
>The question is: what could cause this behaviour or any other ideas as
>to what to look for. Anyone? This machine may have real player that is
>not on the other machines but that was installed recently. The problem
>with the vm's started at least two months ago and may actually have
>been longer since I haven't been using vm's on this machine that much.
>Any help or ideas anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.

> On Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:30:13 -0800, "Joe H" <(email address - cut out)> wrote:
>
> > More on topic. I was able to install 98se in parallels on xp-home
> > machine. Extremely sloooooow install but it worked. Had to use
> > diskette and cd image, however to get it to start. Feel certain
> > vpc2007 would work there as well.
> >
> > Also able to install same in parallels on vista. Much faster because
> > machine is much faster but still takes a long time. Again could not
> > load directly from diskette or cd.
> >
> > Setup same image files of cd and fdd on xp-pro machine and it pops
> > up a black screen and never does any more. Certainly does not load
> > the floppy image. So this most likely is not xp sp3 upgrade fault
> > unless that is very different on xp-pro. I ran memory test with
> > memtest86 and it found no problems with memory after running for an
> > hour.
> >
> > So now to summarize the problem: cannot load ANY vm's on my amd64
> > xp-pro (32-bit os) machine. It has 2-gigs of memory. Vpc2007 and
> > parallels will not load the floppy disk or even an xp pro cd to
> > create a vm. Existing vm's will not load but are stuck at a black
> > screen (have to shut down with task manager). I uninstalled and
> > reinstalled vpc2007 to no avail. I installed vpc2007 sp1 to no
> > avail. No other symptoms that I know of. I can load my full Delphi
> > 2007 ide with no difficulties or errors encountered.
> >
> > The question is: what could cause this behaviour or any other ideas
> > as to what to look for. Anyone? This machine may have real player
> > that is not on the other machines but that was installed recently.
> > The problem with the vm's started at least two months ago and may
> > actually have been longer since I haven't been using vm's on this
> > machine that much. Any help or ideas anyone can provide would be
> > greatly appreciated.
>
> Have you updated all your drivers from the manufacturer's website?
> Specifically, I'd look at video drivers, NIC, and BIOS updates.

>
> Have you updated all your drivers from the manufacturer's website?
> Specifically, I'd look at video drivers, NIC, and BIOS updates.

>Steve Jain [MVP] wrote:
>
>>
>> Have you updated all your drivers from the manufacturer's website?
>> Specifically, I'd look at video drivers, NIC, and BIOS updates.
>
>I bought Driver Detective, ran it and it found 11 drivers out of date
>including video, and many motherboard elements. Updated all and problem
>remains exactly as it was. VPC will not load an existing vm or even set
>up a new one by reading a floppy disk or the cd when you start the vm.
>It makes a black screen and just sits there. So drivers are not the
>cause of this problem.
>
>
>Machine seems to load xp about a 3rd faster however so It wasn't a
>total waste of time.

> On Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:12:38 -0800, "Joe H" <(email address - cut out)> wrote:
>
> > Steve Jain [MVP] wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Have you updated all your drivers from the manufacturer's website?
> >> Specifically, I'd look at video drivers, NIC, and BIOS updates.
> >
> > I bought Driver Detective, ran it and it found 11 drivers out of
> > date including video, and many motherboard elements. Updated all
> > and problem remains exactly as it was. VPC will not load an
> > existing vm or even set up a new one by reading a floppy disk or
> > the cd when you start the vm. It makes a black screen and just
> > sits there. So drivers are not the cause of this problem.
> >
> >
> > Machine seems to load xp about a 3rd faster however so It wasn't a
> > total waste of time.
>
> That is really strange!
> Can you post the complete specs of the machine that's not working?