Windows 7 as kvm guest installation with virtio drivers – detected virtio scsi disk shows wrong capacity

kvm-virtualizationvirtiowindows 7

I am trying to install windows 7 64bit as a kvm guest.
I read here that I should install the virtio scsi driver during installation.

I use virt-install to start my installation from the command line

virt-install --connect qemu:///system \
    --name win7vnc --ram 2048 --vcpus=2 --cpuset=auto \
    --disk path=win7.img,bus=virtio 
    --network=network=default,model=virtio,mac=RANDOM 
    --graphics vnc,port=5900 
    --disk device=cdrom,path=../../isos/virtio-win-0.1-81.iso  
    --disk device=cdrom,path=../../isos/win7_sp1_ult_64bit/Windows\ 7\ SP1\ Ultimate\ \(64\ Bit\).iso 
    --os-type=windows --os-variant=win7 --boot cdrom,hd

The installation start fine and as expected windows do not detect a hard disk. So I load driver and the disk is indeed detected. The problem is it only has 99MB capacity, while I created the disk to be 100GB with the command

qemu-img create -f qcow2 win7.img 100G

what could be wrong and the capacity is not correct?

EDIT: picture of the problem

enter image description here

Best Answer

in the end, i set disk settings as if I will create a new disk at the time the virt-install command is run, even though I have a disk image ready in advance. so I run:

virt-install --connect qemu:///system \
    --name win7vnc --ram 2048 --vcpus=2 --cpuset=auto \
    --disk path=win7.img,bus=virtio,size=100,format=qcow2 \
    --network=network=default,model=virtio,mac=RANDOM \
    --graphics vnc,port=5900
    --disk device=cdrom,path=../../isos/virtio-win-0.1-81.iso \
    --disk device=cdrom,path=../../isos/win7_sp1_ult_64bit/Windows\ 7\ SP1\ Ultimate\ \(64\ Bit\).iso \
    --os-type=windows --os-variant=win7 --boot cdrom,hd

Related Solutions

Windows – KVM instance creation fails with ‘virtio-net has no peer’

I don't think that you want the -device parameter. If you want to use the virtio NIC, add the model option to the -net parameter like this:

-net nic,model=virtio

Your entire command would look like this then:

kvm -m 2048 -cdrom win2008.iso -drive file=windowserver.img,if=virtio -boot d -drive file=.virtio-win-0.1-22.iso,index=3,media=cdrom -net nic,model=virtio -net user -nographic -vnc :5

Getting windows virtio mounted/installed for KVM

The normal way to do this installation is:

Create the VM with a virtualized IDE disk, not a virtio disk.

Before running the installation, choose to customize the hardware, and attach a second virtual hard drive which does use virtio.

This hard drive need only be a temporary drive; it could be a tiny 1GB blank something or other.
Install Windows. (I presume you need no help with this.)
Attach the ISO image containing the virtio drivers.
You'll be notified by popup of hardware for which drivers failed to install. Click on it, or enter Device Manager yourself.
Right click on SCSI Controller, and choose Update Device Driver. Choose to Browse my computer for driver software.
Click Browse, then navigate to the \win7\amd64 folder on the virtual CD, and then click OK. Click Next.
The Red Hat VirtIO SCSI controller driver will be detected. Install it.
Shut down the VM.
Detach the second virtual hard drive. Optionally, delete it. It was temporary, after all.
Select the first virtual IDE hard drive, expand Advanced options, change the Disk bus to Virtio, then click Apply.
Start the VM.