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83 lines
3.0 KiB
83 lines
3.0 KiB
4 years ago
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author = "Blagovest Petrov"
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title = "Virtualize a broken Windows XP machine with KVM or Xen, Part1"
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date = "2013-11-03"
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tags = [
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"Windows",
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"Virtualization",
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]
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categories = [
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"System Administration",
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]
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+++
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 There are a lot of dirty legacy Personal Computers which are online and cannot be reinstalled. The most common problems are that they are installed with a special software and the CDs are lost or licensing problems.
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But what will happen when your zombie Durom dies? And your boss wants to use the accounting software ASAP.. The best scenario is when your HDD is healthy 🙂
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First, you shoud find a cheap HDD -> USB converter. This is the clearest solution because I don’t want to turn off my virtual hypervisors and probably, the old machine would have an IDE HDDs. Chinese combined IDE/SATA -> USB converters can be found for 15-16$.
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# IMPORTANT!
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The old PC’s are too dirty and their cases are sharp and dangerous! You should have a DPT vaccine and suitable protective clothing!!!
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The HDD must be put on a PC with a hardware acceleration and KVM installed. In my case, my personal laptop was the salvation. I prepared a dummy VM with virt-manager, just to generate the XML file for libvirt. Use the simplest configuration. WinXP runs on an old hardware... Here are some steps in images:
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Just one CPU with 1024Mb Ram is OK
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It’s not necessary to have WinXP iso. Use something just to generate the XML for LibVirt.
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The disk is also not revelant. It will be removed after the configuration.
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Better use `i686` for Windows XP
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Force off the machine after this window and open the terminal.
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In the terminal, type `virsh dumpxml WinXp > WinXp.xml` . Open the generated text file with your text editor and find the following stanzas:
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```xml
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<disk type='file' device='disk'>
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<driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'/>
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<source file='/home/vms/WinXP.img'/>
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<target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
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<alias name='ide0-0-0'/>
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<address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
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</disk>
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<disk type='file' device='cdrom'>
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<driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
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<source file='/home/vms/xp64.iso'/>
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<target dev='hdc' bus='ide'/>
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<readonly/>
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<alias name='ide0-1-0'/>
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<address type='drive' controller='0' bus='1' target='0' unit='0'/>
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</disk>
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```
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Remove the whole stanza about the CD Rom and change the disk configuration like this:
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```xml
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<disk type='block' device='disk'>
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<driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
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<source dev='/dev/sdX'/>
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<target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
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<address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
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</disk>
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```
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`/dev/sdX` must be your hard drive, connected with the chinese gadget. Make sure it’s not mounted on the host system. Now your XP machine should run directly from the hard drive.
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