VHD problems, not working anywhere

[Tripredacus]

Here's the situation. A co-worker of mine is taking an online course for college. We called these "telecourses" back in the day but I guess they don't mail out VHS tapes anymore. Anyways, he gets a text book and it comes with a DVD. On the DVD are instructions to install Virtual PC 2007 SP1 from it. When you install it, it already has a CD Key in it so it looks like an MSDN copy but I'm not sure. Then it says to copy the VHD and VMC file from the DVD into a folder in My Documents. Then obviously, open VPC and create a VM from an existing machine.

My co-worker has tried this on three different computers using 2 different VMs. 2 PCs running XP and one running Vista. Also had tried the VPC on the DVD as well as VirtualBox which I pointed out to him. After 2 weeks, he's bummed out because he can't get it to work and asked if I could give it a shot.

There is one problem to start off with, and that is the VMC file has a static path to wherever the VHD was originally created before it was put on the DVD master before being pressed/replicated. I fixed this path to match its new path. Also, it appears that the VHD itself was renamed since it was created and being put on the DVD. I fixed this also. Without doing this fix, adding the VMC into VPC generated an error.

What appears now is that it is impossible to use this VHD as per the instructions.

My host OS is Windows 7 Professional x86. By looking at the VMC, it says the guest OS is Windows XP Pro SP2. Now there is no documentation on the DVD or in the book (although I didn't read the whole thing) that would say how it would be possible to sell a Book that came with a DVD that had a Windows XP VHD on it, let alone that copy of VPC that's on it as well. This may well limit the responses I can get here come to think of it.... Lock this thread if you feel its warranted. For background info, the book is "Computer Forensics Jump Start", printed by Sybex, ISBN: 978-0-470-46195.

It appears the VHD is corrupted. Here are the following behaviours:

Virtual PC 2007 SP1

When starting the session, it goes to "A disk read error occurred"

Disk Management

Attach VHD: "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

VirtualBox Virtual Media Manager

Add Disk: Failed to open the hard disk F:\VHDs\CFHardDisk.vhd.

Could not get the storage format of the hard disk 'F:\VHDs\CFHardDisk.vhd' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Result Code: VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80BB0005)

Component: HardDisk2

Interface: IHardDisk2 {ed6e2525-c2fd-42a4-7a9045ac8e15}

Callee: IVirutalBox {339abca2-f47a-4302-87f5-7bc324e6bbde}

VirtualBox vboxmanage

C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox>vboxmanage clonehd "f:\vhds\cfharddisk.vhd"
"t1.raw" --format RAW --remember
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 2.1.4
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

[!] Failed to create the VirtualBox object!
[!] Primary RC  = E_FAIL (0x80004005) - Unspecified error
[!] Full error info present: true , basic error info present: true
[!] Result Code = E_FAIL (0x80004005) - Unspecified error
[!] Text		= Could not lock the settings file 'C:\Users\LioKaiser\.VirtualB
ox\VirtualBox.xml' (VERR_SHARING_VIOLATION)
[!] Component   = VirtualBox, Interface: IVirtualBox, {339abca2-f47a-4302-87f5-7
bc324e6bbde}
[!] Callee	  = <NULL>, {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}

Any ideas? Do you think the VHD gets corrupted during the file copy or is it already corrupted on the DVD?

[DigeratiPrime]

Disk Management

Attach VHD: "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

First thing I was going to suggest, enough to convince me its corrupted.

[cluberti]

It also looks like they're getting their error code out of ntdddisk.h, and if so that means "SMART_INVALID_DRIVE". Another reason to believe it's corrupted.

[Tripredacus]

My co-worker got it to work, however the school had to send him a new disk. An embarassment for sure, it would appear the entire press run of the DVD I tried had a corrupted VHD on it. The VHD on the DVD was 2GB+ but the correct one was 4GB. I am going to think that the one on the DVD was likely part of a span.

So let me rephrase my questions above. Considering the purchase price of the book was $30, and it came with a DVD. Is it legal for the publisher to provide a licensed copy of VPC 2007 AND a VHD with a licensed copy of XP while not charging for the license? There is no COA for XP included and nowhere on the DVD or in the book did it have any sort of EULAs or any type of documentation about it at all. Seems fishy to me.

[DigeratiPrime]

Well that would be another topic IMO. Isn't VPC free? You can download it here. As for XP I would take a look at the Product ID (PID), find the key, see if its activated etc.

BTW on the subject matter of the book, check out this site if you haven't:

http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

[cluberti]

Depends on the licensing agreement the vendor has with Microsoft - redist of Virtual PC is probably OK no matter what, but redist of an XP VHD would definitely require some sort of licensing agreement between the vendor and Microsoft. It's worth bringing up to your TAM to have it looked into if you've got a premier agreement.

[jaclaz]

BTW and IMHO it would be only a re-distribution problem you can also have (by downloading from Microsoft) VHD's with pre-installed Operating Systems:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

they are time-bombed, of course.

It is possible that the same applies to the images you are talking about.

jaclaz

[urie]

the XP vhd file could be MS OEM SLP as similar to the one for windows 7 xp mode Virtual pc had MS oembios strings in it.

[cluberti]

That's true, if they're time-bombed they may well have a redist agreement in place (it's not all that uncommon). If they're redist'ing full OSes, however, I'd be pretty suspicious.