0

I have a Sony Vaio laptop running Windows 10 21H1, and I've been running a Debian guest on VirtualBox since 2016 without incident. Last Saturday, I attempted to start the guest, and VBx failed with a message that VT-x has been disabled in BIOS for all cores.

Not true. I emphasize that this app has been working as is for over five years, and the only changes I'm aware of since I last launched VBx (not sure, maybe early March) are a handful of Windows Updates.

I repowered ,rebooted, etc. No effect. Ran Windows Update. No effect. Updated VBx from 6.1.32 to 6.1.34. No effect. Opened the BIOS. Virtualization is enabled. Disabled and restarted. No effect. Re-enabled and restarted. No effect. Checked Hyper-V. Not enabled.

Unless there's something I've overlooked, I have to assume it's a hardware problem. Maybe my venerable machine is ready for that silicon pasture in the sky. I hope not.

Maybe the BIOS is corrupted? Should I re-flash? Seems weird, though, if this is the only thing that's been clobbered.

Is the VT error message masking the true problem? No other indications in the log.

Could this be the result of an attack?

Any suggestions before I start reading the laptop reviews?

Improve this question
1
  • Check with msinfo32. At the bottom of System Summary, does it display “A hypervisor has been detected. Features required for Hyper-V will not be displayed.”?
    – Daniel B
    Commented Apr 26, 2022 at 17:02

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

If you've enabled Hyper-V or Windows 10 Sandbox recently it will cause Virtualbox to fire VERR_VMX_NO_VMX VT-x disabled errors

Methods to fix:

  1. Disable/delete Hyper-V/Sandbox if you don't need them
  2. Use bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off command and restart to just disable Hypervisor without removing Hyper-V/Sandbox. But to use them again you will need to set hypervisorlaunchtype to "auto"
  3. You may create a different boot entry for Windows with hypervisor disabled like this:

Create new entry bcdedit /copy {current} /d "disable Hyper-V"

Disable hypervisor for the entry bcdedit /set {new GUID} hypervisorlaunchtype off

Improve this answer
1
  • Unfortunately, this may no longer be working. Windows Defender Virtualization-based Security will remain active and the hypervisor will launch anyway. Could be related to enterprise policies. // VirtualBox supports running with Hyper-V nowadays.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Apr 26, 2022 at 17:01

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .