Virtual CD-ROM & floppy problems in F16

[Ian Pilcher]

I am trying to set up a (32-bit) Windows 7 guest on Fedora 16, and I've
run into a couple of irritating problems.

1.  The guest does not seem to recognize the virtual floppy drive at
    all.  I've used virt-manager to create a virtual floppy drive (and
    controller), confirmed that it appears in the XML, and attached the
    VirtIO driver VFD, but the guest is acting as if it doesn't have a
    floppy drive at all -- both during installation and after I install
    to an emulated IDE disk.

2.  I am unable to attach an ISO file to the virtual CD-ROM.  Clicking
    on the "Attach" button in virt-manager has no effect.  The only way
    I've been able to achieve this is to shut down the guest and delete
    and recreate the CD-ROM.

Is anyone seeing anything like this?  Any ideas what could be going on?

Thanks!

[Scott Dowdle]

Greetings,

----- Original Message -----
> I am trying to set up a (32-bit) Windows 7 guest on Fedora 16, and I've
> run into a couple of irritating problems.
>
> The guest does not seem to recognize the virtual floppy drive at
> all.  I've used virt-manager to create a virtual floppy drive (and
> controller), confirmed that it appears in the XML, and attached the
> VirtIO driver VFD, but the guest is acting as if it doesn't have a
> floppy drive at all -- both during installation and after I install
> to an emulated IDE disk.
>
> I am unable to attach an ISO file to the virtual CD-ROM.  Clicking
> on the "Attach" button in virt-manager has no effect.  The only way
> I've been able to achieve this is to shut down the guest and delete
> and recreate the CD-ROM.
>
> Is anyone seeing anything like this?  Any ideas what could be going
> on?

I haven't tried using real floppies in some time much less virtual ones so I'm not familiar with #1... but on #2, it is a reported bug.  See:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=749928

TYL,

[Markus Armbruster]

Ian Pilcher  writes:
> I am trying to set up a (32-bit) Windows 7 guest on Fedora 16, and I've
> run into a couple of irritating problems.
> The guest does not seem to recognize the virtual floppy drive at
> all.  I've used virt-manager to create a virtual floppy drive (and
> controller), confirmed that it appears in the XML, and attached the
> VirtIO driver VFD, but the guest is acting as if it doesn't have a
> floppy drive at all -- both during installation and after I install
> to an emulated IDE disk.

I'm a happy Windows ignoramus, but maybe I can help you along the first
steps of debugging anyway.

What is your exact qemu-kvm command line?  Fish it out of libvirt's
GUEST.log.

Try

$ virsh qemu-monitor-command --hmp GUEST 'info qtree'

This should print quite a bit of text.  We're looking for the "dev:
isa-fdc" stanza.  Here's one for a controller without drives:

dev: isa-fdc, id ""
            dev-prop: driveA = <null>
            dev-prop: driveB = <null>
            dev-prop: bootindexA = -1
            dev-prop: bootindexB = -1
            isa irq 6

Here's one for a controller with one drive:

dev: isa-fdc, id ""
            dev-prop: driveA = floppy0
            dev-prop: driveB = <null>
            dev-prop: bootindexA = -1
            dev-prop: bootindexB = -1
            isa irq 6

What do you get?

If you have a drive, look it up in output of:

$ virsh qemu-monitor-command --hmp GUEST 'info block'

For me, it's

floppy0: removable=1 locked=0 tray-open=0 [not inserted]

[...]

[Ian Pilcher]

On 01/02/2012 03:43 AM, Markus Armbruster wrote:
> What is your exact qemu-kvm command line?  Fish it out of libvirt's
> GUEST.log.

It's long.  ;-)  It does, however, include the following:

-drive file=/mnt/scratch/software/virt-
drivers/virtio-win-1.1.16.vfd,if=none,id=drive-fdc0-0-0,format=raw
-global isa-fdc.driveA=drive-fdc0
-0-0 -global isa-fdc.bootindexA=3
> $ virsh qemu-monitor-command --hmp GUEST 'info qtree'
>
> What do you get?

dev: isa-fdc, id ""
            dev-prop: driveA = drive-fdc0-0-0
            dev-prop: driveB = <null>
            dev-prop: bootindexA = 3
            dev-prop: bootindexB = -1
            isa irq 6
> If you have a drive, look it up in output of:
>
> $ virsh qemu-monitor-command --hmp GUEST 'info block'

drive-fdc0-0-0: removable=1 locked=0
file=/mnt/scratch/software/virt-drivers/virtio-win-1.1.16.vfd ro=0
drv=raw encrypted=0

Within the guest, Device Manager shows a "Standard floppy disk
controller", but it does not show an attached drive.

I haven't found anything in any of the log files that indicates a
problem.  Weird and annoying.

[Markus Armbruster]

Ian Pilcher  writes:
> On 01/02/2012 03:43 AM, Markus Armbruster wrote:
> > What is your exact qemu-kvm command line?  Fish it out of libvirt's
> > GUEST.log.
>
> It's long.  ;-)  It does, however, include the following:

It's always long :)
> -drive file=/mnt/scratch/software/virt-
> drivers/virtio-win-1.1.16.vfd,if=none,id=drive-fdc0-0-0,format=raw
> -global isa-fdc.driveA=drive-fdc0
> -0-0 -global isa-fdc.bootindexA=3
> > $ virsh qemu-monitor-command --hmp GUEST 'info qtree'
> >
> > What do you get?
>       dev: isa-fdc, id ""
>         dev-prop: driveA = drive-fdc0-0-0
>         dev-prop: driveB = <null>
>         dev-prop: bootindexA = 3
>         dev-prop: bootindexB = -1
>         isa irq 6

Looks good.
> > If you have a drive, look it up in output of:
> >
> > $ virsh qemu-monitor-command --hmp GUEST 'info block'
>
> drive-fdc0-0-0: removable=1 locked=0
> file=/mnt/scratch/software/virt-drivers/virtio-win-1.1.16.vfd ro=0
> drv=raw encrypted=0

Looks good, too.
> Within the guest, Device Manager shows a "Standard floppy disk
> controller", but it does not show an attached drive.
>
> I haven't found anything in any of the log files that indicates a
> problem.  Weird and annoying.

Fedora 16, you said.  Could be this one:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=753863

Comment#2 promises the fix "will make the next update".  Justin, got an
ETA?