Re: [Qemu-devel] disk images & driver geometry

[Christopher Friedt <cfriedt@visible-assets.com>]

Anthony Liguori wrote:
> I have no idea what you're talking about.  QEMU doesn't care whether you 
> use a physical disk or a file.  It handles geometry the same way.
> 
> Is there a concrete example that doesn't work that you think should?

Yes, a simple example is running CentOS after a typical install from a 
hard disk image.

If Qemu is started with the installation cdrom (-cdrom CentOS-1of4*.iso) 
the installation creates several partitions on the virtual disk, 
including /boot, and a logical disk containing /. The first 512 Bytes of 
the disk image are assumed to be the MBR of the disk, which is where the 
installation will write the boot loader.

After installation, qemu is started with

qemu -hda centos.img -boot c

and it hangs after saying 'booting from hard disk'

If anyone knows a way to work around this, please don't hesitate to 
offer a suggestion.

~/Chris