On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:51:50 -0600, Matt Lawrence <mattlaw@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I'm wondering if I can run the existing XP partition (hda1) using qemu. If
> so, then I can go to running Linux, specifically CentOS4, full time.
>
> Ideas?
I recently tried using qemu to run an XP guest with my CentOS 3.4
system as host. However, I was using a virtual hard drive rather than
an existing disk partition.
My experience was that it runs fine as long as you never turn it off.
If at any time I allowed XP to do the equivalent of a full power-off
shutdown, the next time I started it up it would fail to recognize the
disk (read errors). The only way I got it working was to use the qemu
console to suspend the guest and snapshot it; then on restart I'd
reload the snapshot. However I eventually ran into problems with this
as well, because you can't restart the guest with any differences in
the set of connected devices -- e.g., if the CDROM was specified on
the qemu command line when starting the first time, it must be present
again when restarting. Also, the system clock on the guest would be
reset to the time of the snapshot.
I found something on a qemu mailing list indicating that if you first
format the virtual disk with windows98 e.g. fdisk, then install XP,
the read errors go away. However, I didn't get as far as attempting
that.
If you (or anyone) does get it working, I'd appreciate a summary of
how to configure the networking as well.
