Re: [Qemu-devel] making a raw disk image

[Jim C. Brown]

On Tue, Jul 19, 2005 at 09:03:32AM +0100, U n d e r a c h i e v e r wrote:
> 
> When booting the real hardware, the boot loader is grub IIRC and comes
> up first, then the NT Boot Loader. Can anyone advise on how to turn
> /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 into a bootable qemu image? 
> 

/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 can be copied into a disk image.
Thats ot too hard. fdisk -l /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disk will
tell you 3 of heads ad #of sectors per track. It will also tell you how
many cylinders you need for the partition. You can easily create a new
table on a disk image and dd the partition into the right place.

However, Windows NT (including 2k and XP) does not like it when you change all
the hardware (esp. the motherboard & IDE controller). Ok, so how do you get
Windows to recognize and work with the new hardware (the one that qemu uses) ?

Short answer: You don't. You can't. You are better off reinstalling win2000
inside of qemu and then moving all your files from the partition to the disk
image.

Long answer: Once installed, Windows has only the minimal drivers required to
boot the hardware on your computer - which happens to be completely different
from what qemu emulates. 
If you really really want to try to set up Windows 2000, try looking at
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314082 and
http://www.duxcw.com/faq/win/move2K.htm, which explains part of the problem in
greater detail as well as some possible workarounds. Note that changing
the drivers for the IDE and motherboard may not be enough - there may be other
hardware issues as well. (E.g. keep that copy of win2k on the partition until
you are sure that the copy in the disk image has enough drivers to boot into
normal mode).

--
Infinite complexity begets infinite beauty.
Infinite precision begets infinite perfection.