[Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP disk image

[Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP disk image

[Brett Bonfield]

Hi,

Apologies for making an end-user request rather than posing a
developer question or solution, but I'm not sure where else to ask the
following. I'm trying to use Qemu (the latest Windows installer) to
install and run the latest SimplyMEPIS .iso from a disk image so I can
save changes, install software, etc.

The SimplyMEPIS community has provided excellent guidance

http://www.mepis.org/node/view/4066

but I haven't been able to complete what I think are the last few steps, 
in part because I have a very limited understanding of dd (note: I've
been using dd rather than MakeQemuImage because I'd like an image
larger than 2GB and because dd offers more documentation) and how it
would interact with Qemu under Windows XP.

As near as I can tell, there are three separate branches of dd
available to Windows users (all three are open source: there may be
others, but who cares, right?):

1. http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ 

2. http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm

3. http://users.erols.com/gmgarner/forensics/
( which requires that msvcr70.dll and getopt.dll from the same distro
be in the folder with dd.exe )

I've been creating my disk image with the following command:

dd of=hd.img bs=1024 seek=3000000 count=0

The whole point of this exercise is to install SimplyMEPIS under Qemu
without having to partition my hard drive and without damaging my
existing install of WinXP. Is this what dd allows? Does Qemu support
this goal?

Brett

Re: [Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP disk image

[André Braga]

Well, afaict, your dd command is wrong. It should be something like:

dd if=/dev/zero of=hd.img bs=1M count=3000

(for a 3GB image)

I know that Cygwin's dd is capable of reading the emulated /dev/zero
device, not sure about  John Newbigin's version.

Anyhow, there are blank images of various sizes available on the
internet, whch take very little space (I've seen some as small as
5kb), which you could download and use. Google for them. :)

Cheers,
A.

-- 
"A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God"
Alan J. Perlis




On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:45:24 -0500, Brett Bonfield <pacella@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Apologies for making an end-user request rather than posing a
> developer question or solution, but I'm not sure where else to ask the
> following. I'm trying to use Qemu (the latest Windows installer) to
> install and run the latest SimplyMEPIS .iso from a disk image so I can
> save changes, install software, etc.
> 
> The SimplyMEPIS community has provided excellent guidance
> 
> http://www.mepis.org/node/view/4066
> 
> but I haven't been able to complete what I think are the last few steps,
> in part because I have a very limited understanding of dd (note: I've
> been using dd rather than MakeQemuImage because I'd like an image
> larger than 2GB and because dd offers more documentation) and how it
> would interact with Qemu under Windows XP.
> 
> As near as I can tell, there are three separate branches of dd
> available to Windows users (all three are open source: there may be
> others, but who cares, right?):
> 
> 1. http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
> 
> 2. http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm
> 
> 3. http://users.erols.com/gmgarner/forensics/
> ( which requires that msvcr70.dll and getopt.dll from the same distro
> be in the folder with dd.exe )
> 
> I've been creating my disk image with the following command:
> 
> dd of=hd.img bs=1024 seek=3000000 count=0
> 
> The whole point of this exercise is to install SimplyMEPIS under Qemu
> without having to partition my hard drive and without damaging my
> existing install of WinXP. Is this what dd allows? Does Qemu support
> this goal?
> 
> Brett
>

Re: [Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP disk image

[Hermann-Josef Beckers/Kreis-Steinfurt]

Hi Brett,

> 
> I've been creating my disk image with the following command:
> 
> dd of=hd.img bs=1024 seek=3000000 count=0
> 
> The whole point of this exercise is to install SimplyMEPIS under Qemu
> without having to partition my hard drive and without damaging my
> existing install of WinXP. Is this what dd allows? Does Qemu support
> this goal?

have a look at http://www.bablokb.de/bochs-tools. It contains a tool
bxtcreate, which allows images greater than 2 gig. I have used it to
create an image of 10 gig (bzips down to just 1 KB) and installed 
MDK 10.1, Kanotix and SuSe in it using qemu.

Hth
hjb

Re: [Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP disk image

[Brett Bonfield]

I'm still trying to use QemuInstall on Windows XP Pro to install
SimplyMEPIS Linux. You were right -- the initial dd call I was using
was not correct. I've fixed the call, but still haven't made it work.
Here are my tests so far. I'm sorry this is such a long message, but
I've been doing a lot of testing :^)

>From the Mepis.org forums ( http://www.mepis.org/node/view/4066 ):

<begin msg from Mepis forums>

"I've had no problems running SimplyMEPIS from within Qemu as-is... if
you're looking to install it first run:

dd of=hd.img bs=1024 seek=3000000 count=0 

to create a hard disk image (change seek to whatever size you want the
image to be, in this case around 3GB). Then run:

qemu -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net

You can then install as normal using the MEPIS Installation Center and
from then on boot with:

qemu -hda hd.img -user-net 

You're on your own in finding a tool in windows that does the
equivelant of dd in Linux though."

<end msg from Mepis forums>

I found the Windows equivalent of dd (
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm ) and the
developer, John Newbigin, emailed that I should not use

dd of=hd.img bs=1024 seek=3000000 count=0

but should instead

<begin msg from John Newbigin>

"Pick a file which you can read and is larger than 1024 bytes and try 
this command:

dd if=filethatalreadyexists of=newfile.img bs=1k seek=3071999 count=1

here seek is the offset into the newfile to start the writing.  The 
number I am using = 1024 * 3000 - 1 which will give you 3000Meg again."

<end msg from John Newbigin>

I tried this with SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso (the last Mepis release),
John Newbigin's dd for Win32, and QemuInstall-0.6.0 and
QemuInstall-20041111. Here are the errors I got:

QemuInstall-0.6.0 (installed to C:\Program Files\Qemu):

dd if=SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso of=MEPIS.img bs=1k seek=3071999 count=1

< this created the image >

qemu -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net

< this didn't seem to do anything >

qemu -hda hd.img -user-net

< this didn't seem to do anything, either >

So I deleted the .img and uninstalled QemuInstall-0.6.0.

--

QemuInstall-20041111 (installed to C:\Program Files\Qemu):

dd if=SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso of=MEPIS.img bs=1k seek=3071999 count=1

< this created the image >

qemu -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net

< screen flashed and I got the following error:
qemu: could not load PC bios '/c/Program Files/Qemu/bios/bios.bin' >

qemu -hda hd.img -user-net
< again the screen flashed and again I got the following error:
qemu: could not load PC bios '/c/Program Files/Qemu/bios/bios.bin' > 

I decided to try using QemuMenu.bat, which I ran from the command line, It said

<begin QemuMenu.bat error>

Boot QEMU using image:
[1] MEPIS

I selected 1. This generated a QEMU window that contained the
following message (slightly abridged):

Plex86/Bochs VGSBios current-cvs 07 Nov 2004

cirrus-compatible VGA is detected

Bochs BIOS, 1 cpu, $Revision: 1.110 $ $Date: 2004/05/31 13:11:27 $

ata0 master: QEMU HARDDISK ATA-2 Hard-Disk (3000 MBytes)
ata0 slave: Unknown device
ata1 master: QEMU CD-ROM ATAPI-4 CD-Rom/DVD-Rom
ata1 slave: Unknown device

Boot from Hard Disk 0 failed
FATA: Not a bootable disk

<end QemuMenu.bat error>

Please let me know what I'm doing wrong. Again, thank you for reading
through such a long message.

Brett

Re: [Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP disk image

[zitu]

Quoting Brett Bonfield <pacella@gmail.com>:
(...)
> So I deleted the .img and uninstalled QemuInstall-0.6.0.

Connect to codeproject, subscribe and look for Make-a-file.exe.
Any size, and with randol content, it's instantly done.

Zitu
--

Re: [Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP disk image

[zitu]

Quoting zitu <zitu@free.fr>:
> Quoting Brett Bonfield <pacella@gmail.com>:
> (...)
> > So I deleted the .img and uninstalled QemuInstall-0.6.0.
>
> Connect to codeproject, subscribe and look for Make-a-file.exe.
> Any size, and with randol content, it's instantly done.
>

here's the url...
http://www.codeproject.com/tools/make-a-file.asp

Enjoy!
Zitu
--

Re: [Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP disk image

[André Braga]

Hi,

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:51:56 -0500, Brett Bonfield <pacella@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> QemuInstall-0.6.0 (installed to C:\Program Files\Qemu):
> dd if=SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso of=MEPIS.img bs=1k seek=3071999 count=1
> < this created the image >
> qemu -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net
> < this didn't seem to do anything >

Try:
qemu -L . -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net


> Boot from Hard Disk 0 failed
> FATA: Not a bootable disk
> <end QemuMenu.bat error>
> Please let me know what I'm doing wrong. Again, thank you for reading
> through such a long message.

It seems that the batch file is trying to boot the hard drive image
instead of the ISO image. Obviously, since the HD image hasn't been
initialized with a proper OS, it will fail.

Appearently the batch file worked because it passes the "-L ." flag to
QEMU, but sticked to bootin the HD by default.

I hope that's it, and now everything should work OK. Let me know :)

Cheers,
A.


-- 
"A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God"
Alan J. Perlis