[libvirt] How do I import an old VM image to a new Install

[Michael N. Moran]

On 11/25/2009 12:53 PM, Cole Robinson wrote:
> On 11/25/2009 11:36 AM, Michael N. Moran wrote:
>> First, I am a casual VM user. I have been using
>> Fedora Core 7 on my Dell laptop for a couple of
>> years with a single QEMU/KVM guest running Windoze XP.
>>
>> I recently installed Fedora 12 on a new hard disk
>> and would like to use my old Windows VM image
>> on the new install.
>>
>> Is there an easy way to do this?

>> libvirtError: operation failed: image magic is incorrect
>>
>
> Restore isn't what you want here, and though the above error sounds
> scary it is actually correct. Restore starts a VM that was previously
> 'saved', which is kind of like suspend to ram on a physical machine.
>
> You should be able to use virt-install --import to get what you want,
> something like
>
> virt-install --name foo --ram 1024 --os-variant winxp --import --disk
> path=/path/to/your/disk/image ...

Thanks Cole, that's what I was looking for. I used the
following line:

virt-install --name WindozeXP --ram 512 --os-variant winxp \
--import --disk path=/var/virt/WindozeXpDisk.raw

Virt Viewer came up and the XP boot screen was shown for
about a minute and then the I experienced a BSOD with an
UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME error.

I assume that the problem is that I need to specify a
VM that has the same virtual hardware characteristics as
my previous environment. I suppose that can be gleaned
from /etc/libvirt/qemu/WindozeXP.xml or similar.

I've attached that old WindozeXP.xml file in an attempt
to be complete.

If there is an easy way to import that information or
if I'm on the wrong track, please let me know.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: WindozeXP.xml
Type: text/xml
Size: 958 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/attachments/20091125/47c1b355/attachment-0001.xml>