Fedora 13 and Win XP Guest - Boot anomaly

[Ken Smith]

Hi, New to the list but not to Linux.

There has been a discussion on the "Fedora Users" list about an anomaly 
that's been seen with FC13 64bit and installing XP as a guest.

It's a standard FC13 installation on a machine with an Intel i7 and 4G Ram.

When the XP installation finishes the initial text style part of its 
install process and reboots to run the GUI part of the install process 
the virtual machine fails to boot it from the virtualised hard disk.

But if its set to boot from the CD or, in my case, the iso image of a XP 
install CD and its allowed to time out its initial question "Press any 
key to boot from CD....." then the virtual machine starts up and 
completes the XP installation.

One the installation is finished, similar behaviour is seen to get the 
XP virtual system to start up. If I change the setting in virt-manager 
to boot from the Hard Disk image the boot of the VM fails but leaving it 
set to boot from the install CD allows it to start normally after 
allowing the initial question to timeout

I have cc'd Suvayu Ali on this posting as he has also observed similar 
behaviour.

The thread on the Fedora Users list is here ->

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/2010-June/374730.html


Any suggestions.

Thanks

Ken

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[Jes Sorensen]

On 06/12/10 12:34, Ken Smith wrote:
>  When the XP installation finishes the initial text style part of its
>
>  install process and reboots to run the GUI part of the install process 
>  the virtual machine fails to boot it from the virtualised hard disk.
>  
>  But if its set to boot from the CD or, in my case, the iso image of a XP 
>  install CD and its allowed to time out its initial question "Press any 
>  key to boot from CD....." then the virtual machine starts up and 
>  completes the XP installation.
>  
>  One the installation is finished, similar behaviour is seen to get the 
>  XP virtual system to start up. If I change the setting in virt-manager 
>  to boot from the Hard Disk image the boot of the VM fails but leaving it 
>  set to boot from the install CD allows it to start normally after 
>  allowing the initial question to timeout
>  
>  I have cc'd Suvayu Ali on this posting as he has also observed similar 
>  behaviour. 
Hi Ken,

Just to make sure I understand you correctly, if you tell virt-manager
to boot from the harddisk, after the installation, it still fails to
boot? What happens if you disconnect the virtual CDROM and then try to boot?

If it fails in every case to boot straight from the harddisk, then it
sounds like the boot sector on the disk wasn't written correctly.

Cheers,
Jes

[Cole Robinson]

On 06/12/2010 06:34 AM, Ken Smith wrote:
>  Hi, New to the list but not to Linux.
>  
>  There has been a discussion on the "Fedora Users" list about an anomaly 
>  that's been seen with FC13 64bit and installing XP as a guest.
>  
>  It's a standard FC13 installation on a machine with an Intel i7 and 4G Ram.
>  
>  When the XP installation finishes the initial text style part of its 
>  install process and reboots to run the GUI part of the install process 
>  the virtual machine fails to boot it from the virtualised hard disk.
>  
>  But if its set to boot from the CD or, in my case, the iso image of a XP 
>  install CD and its allowed to time out its initial question "Press any 
>  key to boot from CD....." then the virtual machine starts up and 
>  completes the XP installation.
>  
>  One the installation is finished, similar behaviour is seen to get the 
>  XP virtual system to start up. If I change the setting in virt-manager 
>  to boot from the Hard Disk image the boot of the VM fails but leaving it 
>  set to boot from the install CD allows it to start normally after 
>  allowing the initial question to timeout
>  
>  I have cc'd Suvayu Ali on this posting as he has also observed similar 
>  behaviour.
>  
>  The thread on the Fedora Users list is here ->
>  
>  http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/2010-June/374730.html
>  
>  
>  Any suggestions.
>   
It's probably this bug filed against libvirt:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=579348

Though it sounds like a qemu/kvm issue. Upstream bug report is here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/586175

No solution yet though.

- Cole