How do I get into a guest VM without starting VMWare?

[JamesMcLaren]

Not a joke: let me explain:

I have just completed an upgrade between two LTS versions of Ubuntu (12.04 and 14.04). The newly-upgraded Ubuntu 14.04 VM will not boot: it leaves me with a non-responsive cursor on a black screen.

I have checked the relevant Ubuntu forums and the issue appears to be a kernel issue. There is a fix available - but I can't start VMWare to apply it.

So, there has to be a sideways route into the VM that I can use to make the necessary adjustments so I can get the VM to boot. Please be so kind as to enlighten me!

I'm reasonably comfortable with command line Unix on the Mac.

System: 2009 MacBook Pro, Fusion 7.1.3, OS X 10.11.4

[ChipMcK]

perhaps  http://www.paragon-software.com/home/vd-mounter-mac-free/

[ChipMcK]

Be warned that misuse can destroy the guest!

No running guest expects to be updated by someone/something other than itself.

Close and eject the disk image(s) before starting up the guest!

ymmv!

[wila · Accepted solution]

Hi,

A non responsive cursor blinking on a black screen immediately on boot usually means that your grub install is -in good english- b0rked.

As you're comfortable in linux, the steps are roughly:

- boot from a ubuntu live CD

- mount the disk, chroot it and run grub-install.

- reboot

As 'comfortable in linux' usually means something else, luckily I got the steps written out from an earlier event:

This assumes that your disk is /dev/sda1

# Mount root partition:
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt # /dev/sdXY is your root partition, e.g. /dev/sda1

# If you have a separate boot partition you'll need to mount it also:
sudo mount /dev/sdYY /mnt/boot

# Mount your virtual filesystems:
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done

# Chroot
sudo chroot /mnt

At this stage fdisk -l should work and see your disk as normal.

If so then you can run:

grub-install /dev/sda

At this stage you can reboot and your grub should be recovered.

--

Wil

[Mikero]

Came just to agree with wila's suggestion.
Boot from live CD, mount, chroot, tweak, remove live CD (iso), reboot.

There's probably a 'cross fingers, sacrifice a virgin Windows installation and pray to the Linux gods' step somewhere in there I may be missing tho