Getting error message when trying to start a virtual machine

I have been using VMWare on Windows for a long time. But after a long wait, I moved to VirtualBox on Ubuntu 11.10. I installed Ubuntu, 32 Bit, installed all available updates and installed Virtual Box. When I try to create a new Windows installation inside VirtualBox, I got the following error messages.

VirtualBox - Error

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Windows XP.
The virtual machine '**Windows XP**' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1.
Details

Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
Machine
Interface:
IMachine {5eaa9319-62fc-4b0a-843c-0cb1940f8a91}

2nd error dialogue

Virtualbox - Error in suplibOsinit
Kernal driver not installed (rc--1908)
Please install the virtualbox-dkmbs package and execute 'modprobe vboxdrv' as root.

• I have already tried reinstalling VirtualBox.
• Google result seem to indicate the the problem happens due to Kernel updates.

Is there anyway I can get this working? I need this for malware analysis and if VirtualBox is going to crash on me all the time, then I won't be able to use Ubuntu for work.

Output to dpkg -l | grep virtual

 server
rc  virtualbox                             4.1.2-dfsg-1ubuntu1                    
x86 virtualization solution - base binaries
rc  virtualbox-qt                          4.1.2-dfsg-1ubuntu1                    
x86 virtualization solution - Qt based user interface 
cute 'modprobe vboxdrv' as root.<p>

Wierdly, for me it worked by closing VirtualBox and then running

sudo modprobe vboxdrv 

from the terminal and then restarting VirtualBox

I had the same problem and solved it by

1. Purging Virtualbox:

   sudo apt-get purge virtualbox virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-ose-qt virtualbox-qt

2. I then reinstalled;

   sudo apt-get install virtualbox virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-ose virtualbox

   and noticed:

   dependency problems prevent configuration of virtualbox-ose:
   virtualbox-ose depends on virtualbox; however:
   Package virtualbox is not configured yet.
   Package virtualbox-4.0 which provides virtualbox is not installed.
   

3. so I tried installing virtualbox-4.0;

   sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.0

   That worked and pulled in the correct VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules.

4. I then had to download and install the correct version of the extension pack Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.16-75491.vbox-extpack.

That worked, and I now have a fully functioning Virtualbox instance.

Try to uninstall VirtualBox from the command line:

sudo apt-get purge virtualbox virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-ose-qt virtualbox-qt

If it succesfully uninstalled reinstall it:

sudo apt-get install virtualbox virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-ose-qt virtualbox-qt

Carefully check if the command completes succesfully.

I had almost the same error:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Windows XP.
The virtual machine '**Windows XP**' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1.

Then a second window appeared saying I had to run this command:

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

When I Issued that command the following error came out:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
 * Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules                                                             [ OK ] 
 * Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules                                                                   [ OK ] 
 * Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMS                                                              
Error! Your kernel headers for kernel 2.6.38-16-generic-pae cannot be found at
/lib/modules/2.6.38-16-generic-pae/build or /lib/modules/2.6.38-16-generic-pae/source.
Failed, trying without DKMS
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules                                                                                    Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong

Solution

Install the appropriated linux-headers for your O.S. version. In my case was:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.38-16-generic-pae

Ensure all VirtualBox windows are closed.

I tried this : To fix this, run the following, as directed by the prompt:

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

If successful, the result will read Starting VirtualBox kernel modules [ OK ] and it's OK now