[Qemu-discuss] Host drive basics.

[Peter Easthope]

From:   Dale R. Worley
Date:   Mon, 17 Nov 2014 10:38:29 -0500
> ... the -drive option will make *any* /dev/sd*
> look like an ordinary disk to the guest OS.

OK, here is a very simple exercise.

http://wiki.qemu.org/download/qemu-doc.html#sec_005finvocation
contains,
"‘-fda file’
  ...
You can use the host floppy by using ‘/dev/fd0’ as filename ..."

Therefore take any diskette which the bare PC can boot from and
try to boot the virtual machine from it.

Here fd0 twitches; then an error.
address@hidden:~$ sudo qemu-system-i386 -fda /dev/fd0 -vga std -boot a
qemu-system-i386: -fda /dev/fd0: could not open disk image /dev/fd0:
Input/output error

I/O error?  Why?  Certainly it is read/writable.

address@hidden:~$ ls -l /dev/fd0
brw-rw---T 1 root floppy 2, 0 Nov 17 16:44 /dev/fd0

Can anyone make the virtual machine boot from a real boot diskette?

Thanks,             ... Peter E.

-- 
Telephone 1 360 639 0202.  Bcc: peter at easthope.ca "http://carnot.yi.org/ "