[Xen-users] Install XP on sata XEN

Mike Power
2008-09-03T03:48:46Z

Mike Power wrote:
> How are you guys going about installing XP on sata Xen?
>
> When ever I start up the domU using the XP cdrom as the boot device.
> Then the XP installer bails out because it can not find a hard drive to
> install on.  Is this because the hard drive I am pointing at is a sata
> drive?
>
> Mike Power
>
That was my original email sent to the list it seems it never arrived.
I shall try again.  But I have news.

A good way for me to trouble shoot this was to try and install windows
natively.  This allowed me to determine that Windows (despite contrary
advertisements) could not support installs on SATA.  Classic solution
config BIOS and turn off AHCI.  Reboot into Linux-xen start the domU and
it detects the harddrives.

Also it was mentioned on another post (that I replied to, also eaten)
that someone was having trouble using an XP Pro upgrade disk.  I had the
same problem.  I could not eject the XP Pro upgrade disk and insert the
Windows 98 disk because windows would say it wasn''t the correct disk or
it could not read it.  Also I could not create an iso of the 98 disk as
windows would say the same thing.  Some developer should investigate
this, it sounds like a problem within Xen itself.  It is likely that
windows is doing something funky, but it seems more likely that xen
could be improved further in this area.

I solved the problem by plugging in another cdrom(ide) drive into the
computer.  XP Pro upgrade was in one, Windows 98 was in the other.
Lucky for me Microsoft did a good job in this area and checked the other
cdrom.

Other notes, I told windows to do a full (not quick) format of my 80 gb
drive and it failed...  Something for a developer to look at.

I passed this failure by doing a quick format of the drive.

However now I am stuck.

Some last thoughts before I break into the details of where I am
currently at.

I think the idea of Xen and hardware virtualization is a euphoric idea.
  The idea that I can relegate my windows to a domU that runs almost at
100% instead of buying a whole seperate box is awesome.

Some tough love though, you have a slew of features but lack the quality
it needs for consumption.  It is good to distribute to a testing
community to find bugs, but not for production use.  I have twelve disk
lines each of which represents a hurdle I needed to over come to proceed
on the installation of windows.

Not to let the tone end on a negative note I have seen what xen is
capable of, you have done some awesome work.  You have a wide array of
features.  I would encourage you to take some time away from future
feature development and spent some time boiling the quality down.  One
last suggestion info info info.  Too often the difference between
something like printf("Error") and printf("Error: %s") is
hours of my
time.  Your program has the information I need yet it doesn''t volunteer
it.

For example right now my domU won''t boot off the hard disk.  I
experimented by removing the hard drive from the disk line.  The result
was the same.  So now I do not know if the bios can''t see my hard drive
or it just can''t boot my hard drive.  A simple list of detected sata
drives would save me loads of time.

Again I say info, info, info, quality, quality, quality, quality and
pretty soon you''ll see a random developer like me writing scripts to
install domUs.  With the result that all a user will need to do is click
on a check box or two and he''ll have XP, Vista, MacOSX, Linux you name
it all running within Xen.  You could be as common as gnome.

Mike Power
Awesome job, keep up the good work.  It would be nice if one of you
could help me over my current hurdle.