Android x86 Marshmallow not booting on Virtualbox and VMware Workstation I've downloaded the latest Android x86 (android-x86-6.0_20160129.iso) from here and tried to install it to the HDD on a VM in VMware Workstation and in Virtualbox. 

The installation seems to proceed properly (using EXT4, and EFI Grub) and i get a message that it has installed successfully. However when I reboot it passes GRUB, picks the correct Android installation, but it does not boot. I get the result seen in the screenshot below and then a blank screen with a blinking cursor.



I've seen somehow similar questions on Android-SE (here and here), but they use older versions of Android x86 and don't seem to have solutions that work for me.

The VMs in both VMware and Virtualbox have: HDD=4GB(IDE), RAM=2GB, 2 CPUs and they boot through EFI. I've tried nomodeset and xforcevesa in the Grub boot parameters but nothing seems to work.

The .iso does boot up though all the way to the GUI in Live mode (LiveCD).

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I have a feeling that the solution might be something linked to the graphics settings but i'm not exactly sure.
Found the solution!

You have to edit menu.lst file. Here is how:


boot in debug mode (usually the second option in boot menu)
when booting stops (for me it just hangs there with flashing cursor and without any prompt) enter mount -o remount,rw /mnt
enter cd /mnt/grub 
enter vi menu.lst
press Shift+a
right under the first boot entry find the line starting with kernel initrd=/in (your line might look different; it depends on Android version; in general just find the line that starts with kernel) 
at the end of the line type vga=834 nomodeset xforcevesa
press ESC then :wq - these commands will save the file and quit vi
enter cd /
enter umount /mnt
enter reboot -f


Now the system should reboot in the VESA mode of your choice.

This will enforces to use the VESA driver for X. 

You can replace the vga=xxx by any number you want for your screen resolution. 
Also tested that 832 works fine (gives 800x600 resolution).

You can find all the VESA modes when you use the iso file and pick the boot option to boot in VESA mode - it will show the list with all modes (numbers are in hex and there is also a redundant letter in front of some modes - ignore it) and you can test them there immediately to see if it works and is good to use in this menu.lst fix, but you have to convert it from hex to dec first using any hex->dec converter.