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VirtualBox kernel not loaded using 7.10

Asked by Denis Hipsey

updated 7.04 to 7.10 and then loaded VirtualBox using Synaptic. No problems with either, but starting VirtualBox gives "VirtualBox kernel not loaded" (ie vboxdrv). Page 115 of VirtualBox manual suggests it could possibly be because NMI_WATCHDOG is active. as 7.10 is above version 2.6.19 and the manual recommends changing the GRUB config file (menu.1st) by adding nmi-watchdog=0 to GRUB kernel command line. After spending some time with "info" and "grub" I confess to still be a little uncertain as to exactly where that line should be inserted, and would appreciate input. The menu.1st file is still that produced by the 7.10 update.
cheers, Denis

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#1

I think you are talking of the /boot/grub/menu.lst ( the first letter of lst is lowercase L )
you must add the option at the end of this row:

Please open a Terminal from the menu Applications->Accessories->Terminal and type:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

give your user password when requested, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter.

search and change the row starting with:
# defoptions= .........

add your desired kernel boot paramater

# defoptions=.......... nmi-watchdog=0

Save and exit.

Then using terminal run the update-grub command, type:

sudo update-grub

HTH

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Denis Hipsey (dhipsey) said : 		#2

thanks, owe you a beer

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Denis Hipsey (dhipsey) said : 		#3

To conclude - I updated menu.lst with nmi_watchdog=0, made sure /dev/vboxdrv had write permissions, then ran
    sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv start
after which VirtualBox would start