Xen users - Mar 2011 - Windows XP BSD on Xen 3.2-1 after Windows Update: GPL PV issue?

Hi,

I''m having some grief with a Windows XP Pro VM that used to run just
fine with the GPL PV drivers on Debian Lenny Xen 3.2-1 but after a
Windows update now crashes with a BSD (non-existent or corrupted
hal.dll). Something similar is described here (but no solution):

http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-users/2009-11/msg00738.html

This VM has been running fine for at least half a year. When I restore
an old image backup, I can boot it and it runs. However once I''ve
installed the latest Microsoft updates, it crashes with a BSD upon boot.
It''s using the 213 GPL PV drivers. Uninstalling the GPL PV drivers
causes it to hang; installing a newer version (238) on top of the
installed drivers causes it to hang too.

I''ve checked boot.ini, that all looks good.

Any ideas?

Jan


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> Hi,
> 
> I''m having some grief with a Windows XP Pro VM that used to run
just
> fine with the GPL PV drivers on Debian Lenny Xen 3.2-1 but after a
> Windows update now crashes with a BSD (non-existent or corrupted
> hal.dll). Something similar is described here (but no solution):
> 
>
http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-users/2009-11/msg00738.html
> 
> This VM has been running fine for at least half a year. When I restore
> an old image backup, I can boot it and it runs. However once I''ve
> installed the latest Microsoft updates, it crashes with a BSD upon
boot.
> It''s using the 213 GPL PV drivers. Uninstalling the GPL PV drivers
> causes it to hang; installing a newer version (238) on top of the
> installed drivers causes it to hang too.
> 
> I''ve checked boot.ini, that all looks good.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
When you say "uninstalling the GPLPV drivers causes it to hang", do
you
mean that if you uninstall the drivers completely, reboot, then install
the update you still get a crash?

Do you know which update is causing you the problem?

If the hal.dll is corrupt it would have to be before GPLPV is loaded,
which I think means that your filesystem has been corrupted prior to
rebooting.

I have an XP test machine, so if you can tell me which update you
install that causes this crash I can try and reproduce it.

Thanks

James

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Hi James,

As always thanks for your prompt reply - much appreciated.
> When you say "uninstalling the GPLPV drivers causes it to hang",
do you
> mean that if you uninstall the drivers completely, reboot, then install
> the update you still get a crash?
My wrong. The machine I''m working on is on a high latency connection
and
therefor everything is slow. I was updating the drivers using an RDP
session (much faster) instead of console/VNC. Duh...
> Do you know which update is causing you the problem?
>
> If the hal.dll is corrupt it would have to be before GPLPV is loaded,
> which I think means that your filesystem has been corrupted prior to
> rebooting.
I''ve been able to reproduce the problem and that makes a file system
corruption rather unlikely. I restore an image backup from last year
September (which includes GPLPV 213 XP). Everything works. Then I apply
Microsoft Updates and after a reboot I''m getting the BSD. I''ve
repeated
this process a few times; every time with the same result. Unless the
Microsoft Updates would corrupt the filing system of course...
> I have an XP test machine, so if you can tell me which update you
> install that causes this crash I can try and reproduce it.
I managed to uninstall the 213 GPLPV drivers, however that results in a
BSD after I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del. Unfortunately the screen disappears too
quickly but Windows is saying something along the lines of "in order to
protect your information I''ve just crashed".

So I restored from the original image once more and simply installed the
GPLPV 238 drivers on top of the 213 GPLPV drivers. This seemed to have
worked; after a reboot I could log on and so far no more BSD.

However it is not possible to use the network, even if I give the
machine a static IP address.
ipconfig /all reveals the correct/expected MAC address but an address of
169.. get''s assigned even though the network properties show the static
address I put there (ipconfig on the commandline however does not). When
setting the interface to DHCP, I don''t see incoming DHCP requests on
the
dhcp server.


thanks,
Jan


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Hi James,

Not a GPLPV issue after all.
I''ve restored the VM image on a new LV and so far all is well.
Now the (daunting?) task waits to analyse LV(M) corruption as that''s
the
only logical conclusion at this point in time.

thanks very much for your help and prompt answers as always,

kind regards,
Jan


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