Symptoms

Cannot install OS X virtual machine:

Error:

     "The Virtual Machine cannot be started. Mac OS X virtual machines can run only on computers having Mac OS X Leopard or Mac OS X Tiger installed. Problem ID 397."

The error is the same regardless of whether you try to install OS X from the host Mac's Recovery Partition, or by using a .dmg file extracted from the 'Install Mac OS X Lion' installer.

Also, cannot start up an OS X guest VM that was created on a different MacBook Pro 15in and copied to the 13in.

Resolution

1. Reset NVRAM, PRAM on Mac as described here: OS X Mavericks: Reset your computer’s PRAM

   Try to install OS X virtual machine. If the issue still persists:

2. Open the Terminal (Finder/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)

3. Execute the following commands:

   nvram 8BE4DF61-93CA-11d2-AA0D-00E098032B8C:BootCurrent
   

4. If you get this output, than everything is OK with your NVRAM:

   8BE4DF61-93CA-11d2-AA0D-00E098032B8C:BootCurrent    %80%00 (or %00%00)
   

5. If you get the following error message, then you need to apply the solution below:

   00E098032B8C:BootCurrentnvram: Error getting variable - '8BE4DF61-93CA-11d2-AA0D-00E098032B8C:BootCurrent': (iokit/common) data was not found
   

   The solution is to execute the following command in Terminal:

   sudo nvram 8BE4DF61-93CA-11d2-AA0D-00E098032B8C:BootCurrent=%80%00