Great solution Andreas, it worked for a Win2k image which I could only boot previously using an iso from http://www.resoo.org/docs/ntldr/files/
However, I have a w7 image that I have never managed to boot, apart from its installation cd image using virt-install 20Gb w7 image: # losetup /dev/loop0 /vm/w7.img; kpartx -a /dev/loop0 # fdisk -l /dev/loop0 Disk /dev/loop0: 21.5 GB, 21474836480 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2610 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xaf12c11f Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/loop0p1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/loop0p2 13 2611 20867072 7 HPFS/NTFS Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary. # hexedit /dev/mapper/loop0p1 00000000 EB 52 90 4E 54 46 53 20 20 20 20 00 02 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F8 00 00 3F 00 10 00 00 08 00 00 .R.NTFS .............?....... 00000020 00 00 00 00 80 00 80 00 FF 1F 03 00 00 00 00 00 55 21 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................U!.............. # hexedit /dev/mapper/loop0p2 00000000 EB 52 90 4E 54 46 53 20 20 20 20 00 02 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F8 00 00 3F 00 10 00 00 28 03 00 .R.NTFS .............?....(.. 00000020 00 00 00 00 80 00 80 00 FF CF 7C 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ..........|..................... # kpartx -d /dev/loop0; losetup -d /dev/loop0 I changed location 0x1a to 0xFF on one or other or both partitions and it still will not boot in virt-manager. Cheers, Andy. -- Windows XP/2003 doesn't boot https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/586175 You received this bug notification because you are a member of qemu- devel-ml, which is subscribed to QEMU. Status in QEMU: Incomplete Status in “qemu-kvm” package in Ubuntu: New Status in Debian GNU/Linux: New Status in Fedora: Unknown Bug description: Hello everyone, my qemu doesn't boot any Windows XP/2003 installations if I try to boot the image. If I boot the install cd first, it's boot manager counts down and triggers the boot on it's own. That's kinda stupid. I'm using libvirt, but even by a simple > qemu-kvm -drive file=image.img,media=disk,if=ide,boot=on it won't boot. Qemu hangs at the message "Booting from Hard Disk..." I'm using qemu-kvm-0.12.4 with SeaBIOS 0.5.1 on Gentoo (No-Multilib and AMD64). It's a server, that means I'm using VNC as the primary graphic output but i don't think it should be an issue.