KVM fails to boot Windows 7

[jcalvinowens]

I'm trying to get Windows 7 (64-bit) to run under KVM. The installation was successful, and it even booted successfully off the hard drive to finish the installation, but when I attempt to boot now, I get the following error:

[Hu]

KVM supports 64-bit guests, at least for some hardware. What is the output of emerge --info ; cat /proc/cpuinfo?

[cach0rr0]

I'd also be curious to see what parameters you're using to start this machine

I have a Win7Ultimate x64 guest that, while I rarely use it, it does work - a bit sluggish, but it works, so I can confirm that at least. The only real hiccup I hit was having to initially boot with IDE HDD emulation, install the virtio drivers for the HDD, add a disk, etc etc - PITA but it eventually worked.
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[jcalvinowens]

[jcalvinowens]

Well, no luck.

I've tried reinstalling a couple times with different "-cpu" options, but it seems to make no difference. The recovery mode on the Windows installation CD says "The version of Windows installed is unsupported", and refuses to do anything. I used ms-sys to write new bootsectors, but that also made no difference.

I'm starting to think this is a problem with the way my hardware interacts with KVM. I used to run WIn7-64bit in VirtualBox on this same machine, so I know its capable of doing it. I just wanted to use the in-tree solution instead, plus I don't want to use modules in my kernels.

I'm going to try this on another machine and see if it works. Maybe it's a bug in KVM?

[d2_racing]

Hi, can you post your actual command(qemu-kvm) plz

[jcalvinowens]

I tried it on the desktop, and it works: Windows 7 64-bit using the same installation CD. (My desktop is an AMD 8-core Bulldozer, also running Gentoo; the laptop I'm having the issues on is a Core2 duo).

The command I'm running is:

[johndoe31415]

Hi jcalvinowens,

I've run exactly into the same problem as you have also while trying to run Windows7. I'm using qemu-kvm-1.0.1 and my CPU is a Intel Code Quad Q9550:

[johndoe31415]

OK, I'm now pretty certain that we're screwed and cannot use kvm to emulate Windows 7. Here's the timelime of what I've done to come to this conclusion:

1. First I was looking at my BIOS and found it curious that there was no mention of VT. Looked at the net, found an update. Updated the BIOS -- aha -- now there's a VT option. Enabled by default. Tried it again, same error.

2. Then I copied the VM image onto my laptop:

[johndoe31415]

Since the qemu-kvm people probably are most knowledgeable about this issue, I've also posted at the kvm-devel mailing list: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.kvm.devel/91786 Maybe there's a way out (I really hope so).

[Mad Merlin]

[ryao]

Have any of you tried `-cpu host`?

[johndoe31415]

Yup, that's in my cmdline:

[johndoe31415]

The problem was solved by Avi Kivity on the qemu-kvm mailing list. There were some kernel bugfixes that he did and the resulting kernel commit cf3d9372065470403e0780599ca612553211a10b on

[VictorLazlo61]

I am using kvm-qemu 1.0 with a core i5; I got windows 7 to work almost straight away, with some messing with drivers for the 'hard disks'; it required the latest from redhat virtio.
Glad you got some help from Avi and the guys, they just seem to have no time for most problems.

I am using 7 x64 embedded actually, but I would be grateful for any experience you have of using audio on a virtual 7 x64 through your i5 setup.

We actually have DQ67OW boards from intel, and I am not at all sure that the hda support works with 64 bit; messages range from hardware not detected to drivers missing or corrupted(Error code 39 in microsoft money). Incidentally, for what it's worth, we use a 2.38.8 host kernel. Host sound works perfectly.

[ronstudio]