Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Satish Kagathara]

Hello,

I am facing problems in launching windows XP & 7 using qemu-kvm / qemu
from arch. I have arch 2010.05 installed (kernel 2.6.33.4) which has
kvm.ko, intel & amd modules. System is Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz.
Windows XP is installed on partition 0 (real) and i am trying to start
windows from that real partition using qemu-kvm.

I installed qemu-kvm using pacman -S qemu-kvm. I am running modprobe
kvm and modprobe kvm-intel. Also, i have added username to kvm group.

Command -

qemu-kvm /dev/sda - I have grub menu.lst which gives me list and i am
selecting windows to boot but windows does not start. I can see
startup but then fails.

qemu-kvm /dev/sda1 - sda1 has windows. With this qemu-kvm just hangs
at Booting from Hard-disk...

qemu-kvm -no-kvm /dev/sda - Selecting windows but this time get
Windows XP activation error however i can boot same windows XP
directly without any error.

For Windows 7 - I have another HDD with Windows 7 installed on
partition 0 and Arch. Everytime when i try to start Windows 7 using
qemu-kvm (with kvm or without kvm) it gives blue screen with STOP:
0x... If i start Windows 7 directly it works fine.

Also, i downloaded kernel 2.6.35 and built with KVM but still facing
same problems. I also tried with qemu.
Can anyone help me in resolving this issue? I want to qemu-kvm Windows
from real partition. Let me know if it is not possible.

Am i missing any installation/configuration steps?

I searched on google and on arch forum/wiki but was not able to
resolve this issue. Let me know if you need more details.

Thank you,
Satish.

Re: Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Michael Tokarev]

Satish Kagathara wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am facing problems in launching windows XP & 7 using qemu-kvm / qemu
[]
> qemu-kvm /dev/sda - I have grub menu.lst which gives me list and i am
> selecting windows to boot but windows does not start. I can see
> startup but then fails.

qemu-kvm emulates an IDE disk connected to PIIX IDE controller.  If
your windows is prepared to boot from this controller, it will most
likely work.  Or else you'll have to prepare it to boot from it.

The issue is exactly the same as if you moved your whole disk with
windows to a different computer with different hardware.  Which is
not in scope of this mailinglist really, it's windows-related
question.

/mjt

Re: Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Satish Kagathara]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for prompt response. I am having SATA HDD and in BIOS - SATA
is configured as RAID. With that configuration i had installed Windows
7.

How can i prepare it to boot from PIIXE IDE controller?

Strange thing is - I am getting Windows XP activation error when i
qemu-kvm XP, standalone XP works fine. For Windows 7, i can see
Windows 7 startup logo screen then blue screen appears.

Do you think qemu should work if not qemu-kvm? Also, is there
standalone kvm package/utility which i can try?

Thanks once again,
Satish.

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 3:13 PM, Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru> wrote:
> Satish Kagathara wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am facing problems in launching windows XP & 7 using qemu-kvm / qemu
> []
>> qemu-kvm /dev/sda - I have grub menu.lst which gives me list and i am
>> selecting windows to boot but windows does not start. I can see
>> startup but then fails.
>
> qemu-kvm emulates an IDE disk connected to PIIX IDE controller.  If
> your windows is prepared to boot from this controller, it will most
> likely work.  Or else you'll have to prepare it to boot from it.
>
> The issue is exactly the same as if you moved your whole disk with
> windows to a different computer with different hardware.  Which is
> not in scope of this mailinglist really, it's windows-related
> question.
>
> /mjt
>

Re: Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Michael Tokarev]

Satish Kagathara wrote:
> Hi Michael,
> 
> Thank you for prompt response. I am having SATA HDD and in BIOS - SATA
> is configured as RAID. With that configuration i had installed Windows
> 7.
> 
> How can i prepare it to boot from PIIXE IDE controller?
> 
> Strange thing is - I am getting Windows XP activation error when i
> qemu-kvm XP, standalone XP works fine. For Windows 7, i can see
> Windows 7 startup logo screen then blue screen appears.

This is answered in my first email:
>> The issue is exactly the same as if you moved your whole disk with
>> windows to a different computer with different hardware.  Which is
>> not in scope of this mailinglist really, it's windows-related
>> question.

> Do you think qemu should work if not qemu-kvm? Also, is there
> standalone kvm package/utility which i can try?

This is the same thing, basically - qemu emulates everything,
so it's slow, qemu-kvm runs at native cpu/memory speed but
still emulates all the rest, exactly the same way qemu does.

/mjt

Re: Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Michael Tokarev]

Michael Tokarev wrote:
> Satish Kagathara wrote:
[]
>> Do you think qemu should work if not qemu-kvm? Also, is there
>> standalone kvm package/utility which i can try?
> 
> This is the same thing, basically - qemu emulates everything,
> so it's slow, qemu-kvm runs at native cpu/memory speed but
> still emulates all the rest, exactly the same way qemu does.

And, both qemu and qemu-kvm are standalone packages/utilities.

/mjt

Re: Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Satish Kagathara]

Hi Michael,

1. It seems that earlier kvm utility has been replaced by qemu-kvm
right? Because i found few threads on net referring to kvm command.

2. Do you mean Linux KVM works/emulates only IDE controller for
starting windows? It does not support SATA/RAID to start windows?

3. Do you think i need to start my linux kernel with IOMMU or
Intel_iommu options?

Meanwhile i will try to find how can i prepare my windows to boot from
PIIX IDE controller.

My apology if i am throwing too many questions as i am new to KVM.

Thank you for your help.
Satish.


On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 4:07 PM, Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru> wrote:
> Michael Tokarev wrote:
>> Satish Kagathara wrote:
> []
>>> Do you think qemu should work if not qemu-kvm? Also, is there
>>> standalone kvm package/utility which i can try?
>>
>> This is the same thing, basically - qemu emulates everything,
>> so it's slow, qemu-kvm runs at native cpu/memory speed but
>> still emulates all the rest, exactly the same way qemu does.
>
> And, both qemu and qemu-kvm are standalone packages/utilities.
>
> /mjt
>
>

Re: Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Michael Tokarev]

Please stop top-posting.

Satish Kagathara wrote:
> Hi Michael,
> 
> 1. It seems that earlier kvm utility has been replaced by qemu-kvm
> right? Because i found few threads on net referring to kvm command.

No. It were always named qemu-system-x86_64.  Different distributions
name it differently.  In Debian it were named kvm since beginning and
is still named this way, but the package name were renamed from kvm
to qemu-kvm.

> 2. Do you mean Linux KVM works/emulates only IDE controller for
> starting windows? It does not support SATA/RAID to start windows?

It can emulate one of:
 Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 IDE controller
 LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c895a SCSI controller
 Virtio "controller"

There are a bunch of various sata controllers out there (just like
ide and scsi), and qemu does not emulate any of them.

> 3. Do you think i need to start my linux kernel with IOMMU or
> Intel_iommu options?

It depends on your needs.

> Meanwhile i will try to find how can i prepare my windows to boot from
> PIIX IDE controller.

Hint: google for "mergeide".  That works for WinXP but not
necessary Win7.

/mjt

Re: Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Satish Kagathara]

Hi,

See my inline comments.

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru> wrote:
> Please stop top-posting.
>
> Satish Kagathara wrote:
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> 1. It seems that earlier kvm utility has been replaced by qemu-kvm
>> right? Because i found few threads on net referring to kvm command.
>
> No. It were always named qemu-system-x86_64.  Different distributions
> name it differently.  In Debian it were named kvm since beginning and
> is still named this way, but the package name were renamed from kvm
> to qemu-kvm.

Thank you for sharing this information.
>
>> 2. Do you mean Linux KVM works/emulates only IDE controller for
>> starting windows? It does not support SATA/RAID to start windows?
>
> It can emulate one of:
>  Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 IDE controller
>  LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c895a SCSI controller
>  Virtio "controller"
>
> There are a bunch of various sata controllers out there (just like
> ide and scsi), and qemu does not emulate any of them.

Thanks again.
>
>> 3. Do you think i need to start my linux kernel with IOMMU or
>> Intel_iommu options?
>
> It depends on your needs.

I meant whether we need to start linux kernel with IOMMU or
intel_iommu option in command line for KVM to work or not. But i
believe it is not required for KVM.

>
>> Meanwhile i will try to find how can i prepare my windows to boot from
>> PIIX IDE controller.
>
> Hint: google for "mergeide".  That works for WinXP but not
> necessary Win7.

I googled 'mergeide'. I tried it on Windows 7 and it worked. I am able
to qemu-kvm windows 7 now. Thank you so much.

I also tried it on Windows XP but i am still facing some problem. XP
works if i start in Safe Mode but not in normal mode. Gives me an
error - services.exe - Application Error with message Exception
breakpoint, Click OK to terminate the program then gives lsass.exe -
application failed to initialize properly error.

Also, i observed that Windows 7 shutdown takes a lot more time then
regular shutdown. Any reason/clue on this behaviour?

Couple of new questions - 1. Can i run qemu-kvm from linux kernel with
only command support. No desktop environment installed (X11)? If yes,
what is the procedure?

2. If i restart/shutdown from quest OS that is windows in my case, is
it possible to restart/shutdown the complete system (i.e. host OS
too)?

>
> /mjt
>

Thanks,
Satish.

Re: Problems in starting windows using qemu-kvm from arch

[Satish Kagathara]

Hi,

Any updates on my previous email?

Thank you,
Satish.

On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 8:31 PM, Satish Kagathara
<satishkagathara@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> See my inline comments.
>
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru> wrote:
>> Please stop top-posting.
>>
>> Satish Kagathara wrote:
>>> Hi Michael,
>>>
>>> 1. It seems that earlier kvm utility has been replaced by qemu-kvm
>>> right? Because i found few threads on net referring to kvm command.
>>
>> No. It were always named qemu-system-x86_64.  Different distributions
>> name it differently.  In Debian it were named kvm since beginning and
>> is still named this way, but the package name were renamed from kvm
>> to qemu-kvm.
>
> Thank you for sharing this information.
>>
>>> 2. Do you mean Linux KVM works/emulates only IDE controller for
>>> starting windows? It does not support SATA/RAID to start windows?
>>
>> It can emulate one of:
>>  Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 IDE controller
>>  LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c895a SCSI controller
>>  Virtio "controller"
>>
>> There are a bunch of various sata controllers out there (just like
>> ide and scsi), and qemu does not emulate any of them.
>
> Thanks again.
>>
>>> 3. Do you think i need to start my linux kernel with IOMMU or
>>> Intel_iommu options?
>>
>> It depends on your needs.
>
> I meant whether we need to start linux kernel with IOMMU or
> intel_iommu option in command line for KVM to work or not. But i
> believe it is not required for KVM.
>
>>
>>> Meanwhile i will try to find how can i prepare my windows to boot from
>>> PIIX IDE controller.
>>
>> Hint: google for "mergeide".  That works for WinXP but not
>> necessary Win7.
>
> I googled 'mergeide'. I tried it on Windows 7 and it worked. I am able
> to qemu-kvm windows 7 now. Thank you so much.
>
> I also tried it on Windows XP but i am still facing some problem. XP
> works if i start in Safe Mode but not in normal mode. Gives me an
> error - services.exe - Application Error with message Exception
> breakpoint, Click OK to terminate the program then gives lsass.exe -
> application failed to initialize properly error.
>
> Also, i observed that Windows 7 shutdown takes a lot more time then
> regular shutdown. Any reason/clue on this behaviour?
>
> Couple of new questions - 1. Can i run qemu-kvm from linux kernel with
> only command support. No desktop environment installed (X11)? If yes,
> what is the procedure?
>
> 2. If i restart/shutdown from quest OS that is windows in my case, is
> it possible to restart/shutdown the complete system (i.e. host OS
> too)?
>
>>
>> /mjt
>>
>
> Thanks,
> Satish.
>