Re: [Qemu-devel] Boot Problems Windows XP guest

[Erik Rull]

> On August 27, 2013 at 11:37 PM Anthony Liguori <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>
> On Aug 27, 2013 4:32 PM, "Paolo Bonzini" <address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> > Il 27/08/2013 22:26, Erik Rull ha scritto:
> > > Hi Stefan,
> > >
> > > which BIOS is selected by default?
> >
> > QEMU only ships with SeaBIOS.
> >
> > > It's more a guess, there must be a
> > > change between 1.2.0 and 1.6.0 that prevents a simple Windows XP from
> > > booting completely, if the guest HDD image is placed on a SSD. On a
> > > rotating HDD (with the same commandline except the path to the image) it
> > > boots successfully. The only difference is the speed of the disk access.
> >
> > It could be a real difference, actually.  An unexpectedly fast disk
> > might screw a sloppy driver.  IIRC you're not the first person reporting
> > it.  Stefan, do you think using block throttling could fix it (with some
> > trial and error)?
>
>
> Add cache=writethrough and I bet it'll work even on an SSD.
>
>
> We changed the default in that timeframe.  The Windows IDE drivers can have
> an issue if the IRQ comes too quickly to indicate the request has
> completed.  This is what -win2k-hack is for.  That may also work here too.
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Anthony Liguori
>
> >
> > > I will try an alternative BIOS, maybe this fixes it, if not I will try
> > > to do some regression tests, first trying 1.4.0.
> >
> > This could help.
> >
> > Paolo
> >
> >

Hi all,

thanks for the input. I tested both cache=writethrough and -win2k-hack but it
didn't help.
But I was able to capture a screenshot from the Windows XP bluescreen, it shows
only a kind of disk access problem, but this could still be related to the
"speed" of the disk access (see cropped screen attached). Even with disabled kvm
it does not work, it just takes longer until it reboots.

Any further ideas? Are we now too quick for XP?

Best regards,

Erik

qemu-xp-bluescreen.png
Description: PNG image