Hey there! I tested @wkozaczuk's suggested minimal steps and THEY WORKED FOR ME!!
The steps executed on my mac: 1. dd if=boot.bin of=image.img > /dev/null 2>&1 2. dd if=lzloader.elf of=image.img conv=notrunc seek=128 > /dev/null 2>&1 3. qemu-img convert image.img -O qcow2 image.qemu 4. qemu-img convert image.qemu -O qcow2 image2.qemu The end result: -rw-r--r-- 1 *** *** 6684672 Jun 22 14:19 image.img -rw-r--r-- 1 *** *** 7012352 Jun 22 14:20 image.qemu -rw-r--r-- 1 *** *** 7012352 Jun 22 14:20 image2.qemu -rw-r--r-- 1 *** *** 6750208 Jun 22 14:22 image2.vbox The result of regular compare: qemu-img compare image.qemu image2.qemu Images are identical. The result of strict compare: qemu-img compare -s image.qemu image2.qemu Images are identical. Qemu-img on my Mac: qemu-img --version qemu-img version 6.0.0 Copyright (c) 2003-2021 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers Hardware Overview: Model Name: MacBook Pro Model Identifier: MacBookPro16,1 Processor Name: 8-Core Intel Core i9 Processor Speed: 2,4 GHz Number of Processors: 1 Total Number of Cores: 8 L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB L3 Cache: 16 MB Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled Memory: 64 GB Activation Lock Status: Enabled Storage: Mount Point: / File System: APFS Writable: No Ignore Ownership: No BSD Name: disk1s1 Volume UUID: 67798918-C522-45C3-918F-3C4155EF4D13 Physical Drive: Device Name: APPLE SSD AP1024N Media Name: AppleAPFSMedia Medium Type: SSD Protocol: PCI-Express Internal: Yes Partition Map Type: Unknown S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified System Software Overview: System Version: macOS 10.15.7 (19H1217) Kernel Version: Darwin 19.6.0 Boot Volume: Macintosh HD Boot Mode: Normal Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled System Integrity Protection: Enabled -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of qemu- devel-ml, which is subscribed to QEMU. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1776920 Title: qemu-img convert on Mac OSX creates corrupt images Status in QEMU: Expired Bug description: An image created by qemu-img create, then modified by another program is converted to bad/corrupt image when using convert sub command on Mac OSX. The same convert works on Linux. The version of qemu-img is 2.12. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1776920/+subscriptions
