Win10 VirtualBox Guest seems like sudden disk corruption, but restored .ova does too

[FuLl]

On Linux Mint 18.3 with VirtualBox 5.1.38_Ubuntu r122592.

This is the second time I've seen this occur. The Windows VM starts randomly jumbling & omitting text from everything, just borking the whole desktop in general. It looks like disk corruption, so I restored from an exported .ova I had created before the problem began.

But the restored VM continues to have the same problem. I've tried changing the VMs disk location on the host from my SSD where it originally resided, to a spindle drive. Also tried changing the VM's disk imported from the .ova using a .vdi or a .vmdk, but no help.

Last time this happened I had to reinstall the whole Win10 from scratch. But that takes forever, so I'd sure like to fix what's wrong & move forward from there.

In case it matters the last time I saw this happen was after changing the VM from 2 to 1 CPU thread- changing back didn't help. This time it happened after I opened several high-load apps all at once.

Screenshot of the mess: https://files.catbox.moe/7byhej.png

Thanks in advance.

[pbear]

This is really a VBox problem, so try their forum if no one here can help, specifically the Windows Guest sub-forum. Be aware they're very good but also very particular about posting guidelines, so be sure to review those first.

As an aside, there's no need to use ova for backup. Simply copy the VM folder to another location. Restore with Machine: Add (after having deleted the original).

[FuLl]

This is really a VBox problem, so try their forum

I posted here because the last time I tried their forum for help I was referred here due to the version of VirtualBox made available through the Linux Mint repos being 'unofficial'.

VirtualBox version 5.1.38_Ubuntu r122592.

1) That's an old VirtualBox version, but most importantly 2) This is a fork of the official VirtualBox.

You can either ask in their forums for help, or completely remove/uninstall/delete/purge their version and install the official version from the Linux Downloads section of VirtualBox.

[pbear]

Ah, well, that is a problem. Frankly, I'd recommend you do that anyway, i.e., install the current version from VBox (5.1 hasn't been supported since April). I'd stay with 5.2 (still supported), as 6.0 has just been released and they're still working out bugs. MintBean wrote a nice installation script I've used several times. Notice it's on you to purge your current version before running the script. A simple apt purge virtualbox* worked for me. As you may know, no need to offload your VMs (although there's always something to be said for having backups). They stay put throughout purge and reinstall.

By the way, I'm curious, how did you end up with an Ubuntu fork of VBox? Did you add it by ppa? As I recall, the only version available from repo was 5.0 (the one current when Ubuntu 16.04 and Mint 18 were started). If so, you might have to remove that from Software Sources before installing directly from Oracle. Notice I said "might." I don't actually know, as I never did that. I was running the repo version when first I ran MintBean's script and the simple purge command was adequate to my purpose.

In any event, sure, before doing that, leave the thread up for a few days to see whether someone has a solution.

[FuLl]

I restored a .vdi disk image I had backed up previously, & that seems to have solved the issue for now. I don't understand how the .ova import didn't help but this C/P did. I created the .ova just before C/P'ing the .vdi elsewhere so that's a mystery.

As for my version, I have no idea how it's not normal, & when I look at aptitude it seems it is normal, so how is it that this stock Linux Mint version is considered forked?

Screenshot of my /etc/apt/sources.list.d ls:
https://files.catbox.moe/d58fwn.png

...And the aptitude show virtualbox:
https://files.catbox.moe/s12ry9.png

Seems normal to me.

[pbear]

Congratulations. I'm still puzzled how you ended up on an Ubuntu fork of VBox, but that's merely a point of curiosity, so never mind.