Xen users - Jan 2009 - resize file disk iommu xp won''t boot

hi.

sorry if this is a faq, but i didn''t find anything with google.

i have this line:
disk = [ ''file:/home/winxp.img,hda,w'',
''phy:/dev/cdrom,hdc:cdrom,r'' ]
in a hvm windows xp image.

/home/winxp.img is 4 GB, i have to expand it to 8 GB.

i have tried both dd with in append mode and dd another 4 GB file and then cat 
tempfile >> winxp.img.

when i boot xp, i can see the correct disk size, but it stop at "Booting
from
Hard Disk...".

now on, i have tried to dd to zero the first 446 byte with a live cd, start 
with xp install cd in repair mode and i made both fixmbr and fixboot but i 
still get the error.

do you have some hint?

thanks
Daniele Palumbo

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On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Daniele Palumbo <daniele@retaggio.net>
wrote:
> /home/winxp.img is 4 GB, i have to expand it to 8 GB.
>
> i have tried both dd with in append mode and dd another 4 GB file and then
cat
> tempfile >> winxp.img.
I hope you have you original winxp.img handy. I have a (hopefuly
wrong) hunch that you''ve messed up your data.
>
> when i boot xp, i can see the correct disk size, but it stop at
"Booting from
> Hard Disk...".
>
> now on, i have tried to dd to zero the first 446 byte with a live cd
446? I thought MBR is 404 bytes?
> still get the error.
Try these, and post the output.
ls -lsh /home/winxp.img
losetup -f /home/winxp.img
losetup -a
fdisk -l /dev/loop0 (or whatever loop holds winxp.img)
losetup -d /dev/loop0

My guess is :
- fdisk still says 4G disk, OR
- you get a big number of cylinders

Regards,

Fajar

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Il venerdì 23 gennaio 2009 12:21:30 Fajar A. Nugraha ha
scritto:
> I hope you have you original winxp.img handy. I have a (hopefuly
> wrong) hunch that you''ve messed up your data.
of course :D
> > when i boot xp, i can see the correct disk size, but it stop at
"Booting
> > from Hard Disk...".
> >
> > now on, i have tried to dd to zero the first 446 byte with a live cd
>
> 446? I thought MBR is 404 bytes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
512 bytes, but from 447 start the partition table...
and i don''t want to delete it, of course.
> Try these, and post the output.
> ls -lsh /home/winxp.img
> losetup -f /home/winxp.img
> losetup -a
> fdisk -l /dev/loop0 (or whatever loop holds winxp.img)
> losetup -d /dev/loop0
new image:
pc18:/home# fdisk -l /dev/loop1

Disk /dev/loop1: 8388 MB, 8388608000 bytes
128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2031 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x92759275

      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/loop1p1   *           1        1014     4088416+   7  HPFS/NTFS
pc18:/home#

backup image:
pc18:/home# fdisk -l /dev/loop1

Disk /dev/loop1: 4194 MB, 4194304000 bytes
128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9e099e09

      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/loop1p1   *           1        1014     4088416+   7  HPFS/NTFS
pc18:/home#
> My guess is :
> - fdisk still says 4G disk, OR
> - you get a big number of cylinders
but of course, cause qemu see 8GB in virtual bios, this is not a surprise to 
me.

any other hint?

thanks
daniele

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On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 7:34 PM, Daniele Palumbo <daniele@retaggio.net>
wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
> 512 bytes, but from 447 start the partition table...
> and i don''t want to delete it, of course.
Ah, thanks for the info.
> new image:
> pc18:/home# fdisk -l /dev/loop1
>
> Disk /dev/loop1: 8388 MB, 8388608000 bytes
> 128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2031 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x92759275
>
>      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/loop1p1   *           1        1014     4088416+   7  HPFS/NTFS
So you haven''t gone through resizing the ntfs and partition yet, but
Windows simply refuses to boot, right?
> pc18:/home#
>
> backup image:
> pc18:/home# fdisk -l /dev/loop1
>
> Disk /dev/loop1: 4194 MB, 4194304000 bytes
> 128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x9e099e09
>
>      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/loop1p1   *           1        1014     4088416+   7  HPFS/NTFS
> pc18:/home#
>> - you get a big number of cylinders
>
> but of course, cause qemu see 8GB in virtual bios, this is not a surprise
to
> me.
>
Here''s what happened to me earlier :
- I use 10G LVM as domUs disk -> windows boots
- created another 10G LVM, clone the first disk''s contents using
ntfsclone -> windows boots
- created 10G zfs-volume on another host, import it with iscsi, clone
the first disk here using ntfsclone again -> windows refused to boot

Weird huh?
Upon investigating, I found that LVM-backed disk show these geometries
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders

while the iscsi-imported zfs-volume had these
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 10240 cylinders

So I use fdisk''s extra functionality to change iscsi-imported
disk''s
geometry to be the same as the LVM one, repeat the cloning process,
and voilla, windows boots.

Perhaps windows (or at least Windows that was installed to a
1305-cylinder disk) can''t boot from a 2031-cylinder (or in my case, a
10240-cylinder) disk. I know it''s not a very scientific explanation
(especially since my notebook has a 14593 cylinder SATA disk, and
windows boots just fine from it), but as shown from my experiment
above simply changing the disk geometry fixed the issue.

I suggest you try these :
- create a new 8GB image (copy the backup image then extend it with dd
or whatever)
- use fdisk to change disk geometry to 255 heads, 63 sectors/track,
1019 cylinder
- delete the old partition 1
- create a new partition 1, have it occupy cylinder 1-1018. Don''t
forget to set active flag and type correctly
- try booting windows

If it works, then your next step is to resize ntfs on partition 1
using ntfsresize. If it doesn''t, I''m out of ideas. Good luck
:)

PS: If anyone can give a detailed explanation as to why I need to
change disk geometries to make windows boots, I''d like to hear it.

Regards,

Fajar

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Il venerdì 23 gennaio 2009 14:13:38 hai scritto:
> So you haven''t gone through resizing the ntfs and partition yet,
but
> Windows simply refuses to boot, right?
yes.
> Weird huh?
> Upon investigating, I found that LVM-backed disk show these geometries
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders
>
> while the iscsi-imported zfs-volume had these
> 64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 10240 cylinders
but you have had a change in heads and sectors per track... i did not.
> I suggest you try these :
> - create a new 8GB image (copy the backup image then extend it with dd
> or whatever)
> - use fdisk to change disk geometry to 255 heads, 63 sectors/track,
> 1019 cylinder
why 1019?
> - delete the old partition 1
> - create a new partition 1, have it occupy cylinder 1-1018. Don''t
> forget to set active flag and type correctly
> - try booting windows
i did it, anyway no luck.

BUT!
you gave me some useful information, and i started a new search on google.

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php?id=ntfsclone
what the program do is described and linked in that page, for who want to go 
deep.

this tool is included also in systemrescuecd http://www.sysresccd.org/ from 
1.1.1betasomething, but the name of the file to exec is ntfsreloc not 
relocntfs.

i have burned the cd (maybe fastest, otherwise i have to double losetup: the 
first  to see the partition table, se second to see the partition) and 
runned:
ntfsreloc -w /dev/sda1

started windows, all ok.
whithin windows i do not know how to resize the partition, i didn''t
found
anything on disk gestures...

so, to resize the partitions i have restarted system rescue cd, and runned 
gparted (i am REALLY lazy today...) with mouse and all... resized the 
partitions, restarted and voilà!

8GB C: xp.

thanks you,
and my 2 cents

bye
d.

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On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Daniele Palumbo <daniele@retaggio.net>
wrote:
>> - create a new 8GB image (copy the backup image then extend it with dd
>> or whatever)
>> - use fdisk to change disk geometry to 255 heads, 63 sectors/track,
>> 1019 cylinder
>
> why 1019?
( 8388 MB, 8388608000 bytes) / ( Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 8225280 bytes
)
> i have burned the cd (maybe fastest, otherwise i have to double losetup:
the
> first  to see the partition table, se second to see the partition) and
> runned:
> ntfsreloc -w /dev/sda1
Wow. I didn''t know there was a program called ntfsreloc. Too bad
it''s
not available on Ubunu repositories.
>
> started windows, all ok.
Thanks for sharing your experience.

Regards,

Fajar

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