[Qemu-discuss] Re (2): Host drive basics.

[peter]

Dale,

From:   address@hidden (Dale R. Worley)
Date:   Mon, 24 Nov 2014 17:45:59 -0500
> it's only read/writable if you're user root or in group floppy.  So
> I'd first check that the Qemu process has the right id's to access
> /dev/fd0.  Another check is to run "dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/null
> count=1440" and see if you get an error.  Even better, use dd to copy
> the floppy's contents into a disk file and specify the disk file as
> the argument to -fda -- the minimizes the chance that there is some
> odd behavior of the /dev/fd0 device that is giving Qemu trouble.

Checked those things repeatedly using more than one machine 
and still get ambiguous results.  For example, I have an 
image file which the qemu virtual machine can boot from.  
On machine A, write that file to a diskette with dd.  
Put the diskette in machine B.  There is boots, no 
problem.  Try to boot machine A from the diskette and 
get an i/o error.  But machine A wrote the diskette.  
The drive in A can write but not read?

I still haven't succeeded to get a QEMU virtual machine 
to boot from a diskette in any case.  Are all the drives 
in machines here too old and faulty?  Possibly.  Still 
I wonder about a bug.  A counter-example would be really 
nice.  Ie. one QEMU virtual machine somewhere booting from 
a real diskette.  Are the diskette drives here the only 
ones in the world still operating?

A positive result is that I succeeded to run the installer 
under QEMU and produce a working system.  Documentation 
here.
http://www.ocp.inf.ethz.ch/wiki/Documentation/Installation#toc23
The most difficult part of the whole procedure is to find 
or make a suitable target part of a disk. (gparted)

Therefore the diskette question is no longer a priority. 
If someone can verify that "-fda /dev/fd0" works, good for 
consistency of QEMU. 

Regards,               ... Peter E.

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