[Fedora-xen] kvm crash on f8

[John Summerfield]

Dustin Henning wrote:
> 	If you have this system set up how you want and it required a lot of
> configuration, one option might be to do a full backup (including system
> state) of the configured system, then install windows on an hvm and do a
> full restore, I have read that this is a good p2v (and vice versa) method
> for Windows, as the system state backup apparently doesn't replace drivers.
> I have never tried it, so I can't tell you the caveats, but depending on
> your situation, it might be worth a shot (I have read similar articles about
> moving from one piece of hardware to another).  Also, in Windows, all
> drivers are loaded the same way, so if the right driver can be installed
> from the initial hardware configuration, Windows will boot in the new
> configuration.  I have done this many times to change HD controllers in the
> same system for performance reasons (going to a separate IDE controller was
> a big performance boost on old IDE computers).  I never had much luck doing
> that, though, unless I could put the hardware in to install the drivers for,
> that may mean that it won't automatically use a driver just because it is
> there, it has to be associated with the specific piece of hardware.
> Nonetheless, depending on how much time you want to spend, you might have
> some options.
> 	Dustin
<snip>
and now I think it's Jeff.
> 
> Windows is picky about hard disk drivers. The initial installation
> seems to install some drivers that get loaded early for your disk
> hardware. QEMU emulates a different type of hardware than what you
> probably have and so it can't find the root disk once the kernel has
> booted. If you change the main disk controller on a real machine, you'll
> probably have the same problem.
> 
> I'm not aware of a way to fix that, unfortunately. I've generally had to
> install my windows images from scratch.
> 

This is a trial of what I really want to do, which includes running 
Windows 2003 Server and a domain of Windows XP Professional clients (not 
many - likely 2-3 of them) for testing and education, and ideally a 
Windows XP system which is to be moved to different hardware anyway, but 
  preferably without being reinstalled.

Installing drivers is okay, using xen is fine, I tried kvm because it 
doesn't require a special kernel.

I'm a bit dismayed to see mentions of FX chipset and piix3 in the 
qemu-kvm doc (I remember piix4, but piix3?). Surely that won't work for 
Vista.


I did try an install of my Windows on the HP dc7700p using the ISO in 
its recovery partition, but I quit as soon as it asked me for the other 
CD as evidence I'm licenced[1]. I suspect this version is locked to my 
BIOS and so doesn't require activation, so it's probably not going to 
work at all, but enquiring minds need to know.

The backup/restore procedure might work, it's supposed to preserve user 
data, but if it's supposed to clean out malware then it should not.

I might let it sit though, and see whether someone has another idea:-)

Merry Xmas all.

[1] Producing the CD isn't a problem, sticking it in the imaginary CD 
drive was, and while I think the needed ISO is right there too, I 
especially don't know how to shuffle virtual CDs.

-- 

Cheers
John

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