QEMU not booting my image


 
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Special Forums Hardware Filesystems, Disks and Memory QEMU not booting my image
# 1  
Old 01-02-2011
QEMU not booting my image

hello all,
I have been trying to boot an image (.IMG) using qemu, for quite some time now and i can't seem to get it to work. I've been able to boot from the Windows XP CD, the Debian iso image, etc, so I know qemu is configured properly and is working. But when it come to booting an image that I created, it just doesn't work. I have tried creating an image with only the grub files, and qemu does not seem to even recognize the image as a bootable image. The result I get when trying to boot from the latter, is the same result I get if I just type the command "qemu" without any options. The image in question is attached below.

image.zip
# 2  
Old 01-02-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by neur0n
But when it come to booting an image that I created, it just doesn't work. I have tried creating an image with only the grub files, and qemu does not seem to even recognize the image as a bootable image.
Please tell us exactly how you're running qemu, word for word, letter for letter, keystroke for keystroke.

There's more to using grub than just putting the files on it. How did you install grub? again: word for word, letter for letter, keystroke for keystroke.

You might also be putting the files one dir in too deep, boot/grub/ instead of just grub/. I often see people make a symlink boot -> . so they can put them directly in grub, letting either option work.

For that matter, I can't remember ever seeing grub used in a situation without partitions, and I'm not sure where to proceed on that. You might do better to get an image for a working grub floppy, or perhaps a USB booting thing, then modify it to your needs.

Last edited by Corona688; 01-02-2011 at 09:20 PM..
# 3  
Old 01-03-2011
I looked at your test.img using
Code:
xxd test.img | less

It is not a bootable image. That would appear to be the reason that QEMU will not boot the image.
# 4  
Old 01-03-2011
ok I found these step on how to make a bootable image:

Code:
$ cd /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc
$ dd if=stage1 of=image.img bs=512 count=1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
$ dd if=stage2 of=image.img bs=512 seek=1
153+1 records in
153+1 records out
$

But is this correct and if it is will I be able to freely add files afterwards?

Last edited by neur0n; 01-03-2011 at 12:03 PM..
# 5  
Old 01-03-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by neur0n
ok I found these step on how to make a bootable image:

Code:
$ cd /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc
$ dd if=stage1 of=image.img bs=512 count=1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
$ dd if=stage2 of=image.img bs=512 seek=1
153+1 records in
153+1 records out
$

But is this correct
Sort of. You didn't need to create image.img in the current directory, and probably shouldn't, and didn't need to run any of that as root. It also only creates a 105KB file, not a 1440KB file, so I'd modify it a little:

Code:
cd /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc
# make a completely blank disk image
dd if=/dev/zero of=~/image.img bs=512 count=2880
# copy the boot sector onto it.  "conv=notrunc" tells it not to shrink the file.
dd if=stage1 of=~/image.img conv=notrunc bs=512
# copy stage2 onto it
dd if=stage2 of=~/image.img conv=notrunc seek=1 bs=512

My system has them in /lib/grub/, not /usr/lib/grub incidentally, but systems do differ. "bs=512" is redundant since dd defaults to that but it doesn't hurt anything.

Quote:
and if it is will I be able to freely add files afterwards?
It contains no filesystem, there's nothing to add files to. It would only boot to a grub prompt.

But it should almost certainly be a valid boot disk image, with which you can test qemu.

---------- Post updated at 12:13 PM ---------- Previous update was at 12:05 PM ----------

[edit] the below instructions didn't work because the grub utility can't install on a floppy that way. argh.

Last edited by Corona688; 01-03-2011 at 02:33 PM..
# 6  
Old 01-03-2011
But the reason I want to get this working is so that I can load some modules, therefore I need to add files to the image.
# 7  
Old 01-03-2011
How about you tell us what your ultimate goal is, not just what your problem of the millisecond is, so we can guide you in the right direction now instead of when we finally find out where you're trying to go. You spent a long time making an ext2 disk image when that turned out not to be what you needed...
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