Technical Reference: The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor not running
You may receive the following error when starting a Hyper-V virtual server:
The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running.
- The most common cause is the BIOS does not have virtualization ON. (Enabled)
- A more obscure cause is the DEP (Data Execution Prevention) setting. The default is set correctly, but may have been chaged.
On Dell PowerEdge servers, the setting is labeled “Processor Execute Disable”… and should be ENABLED.
(I know, the wording is a little bit of double-talk)
If you’ve installed Dell OpenManage Server Administrator, the settings are located under System > Main System Chassis > BIOS > Setup (tab):
If you're interested in a more in-depth explanation of DEP, this is a very good article:
http://fawzi.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/the-hypervisor-is-not-running-hardware-dep-what-is-it/
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First published on 06/20/2010
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Last modified on 06/20/2010
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