Hi,
While monkeying around trying to fix suspend/hibernate, I thought I would "upgrade" to Ubuntu's latest-n-greatest, 8.10, in hopes that they had fixed it. Now, my VirtualBox XP won't start because it can't find the floppy (that xp on another boot partition finds OK):
05:17:14.115 ERROR [COM]: aRC=NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) aIID={e3c6d4a1-a935-47ca-b16d-f9e9c496e53e} aComponent={Console} aText={The floppy controller cannot attach to the floppy drive.
05:17:14.115 VBox status code: -102 (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND)} aWarning=false, preserve=false
05:17:14.119 Power up failed (vrc=VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND, hrc=NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0X80004005))

When I hit the start button I see this in an error box:

The floppy controller cannot attach to the floppy drive.
VBox status code: -102 (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND).
Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
Console
Interface:
IConsole {e3c6d4a1-a935-47ca-b16d-f9e9c496e53e}


I was looking around for a config file to hack to nuke any reference to a floppy. I found 2, "do NOT edit" .dat files and 1 very short .XML file in ~/.VirtualBox but no reference to a floppy.

In the log file, I found a few references to a floppy:
05:17:13.875 [/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/] (level 4)
....
05:17:13.875 FloppyDevice <string> = "i82078" (cch=7)
...
05:17:13.875 BootDevice0 <string> = "FLOPPY" (cch=7)
...
05:17:13.875 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#0/] (level 4)
05:17:13.875 Driver <string> = "HostFloppy" (cch=11)

I did a `locate Devices | grep pcbios` but found nothing.

I left the XP in the box in suspend mode and now I can't get it restarted to release my Photoshop license. I have re-re-re-re-installed it so many times, I have to spend half an hour on the phone to the trolls at Adobe to beg them to give me an override code to get it working each time I reinstall it.

Any ideas on how to make it ignore the floppy failure and boot anyway?

Thank you,
BrianP

How about disabling the floppy drive before you boot your guest XP? You could also try disabling the remount all drives or whatever it's called. I had a boot hang for a missing DVD once, from that.