Win7ProSP1 Install Problem - DVD Driver required(?!)

[fortechitsolutions]

Hi all, I'm having an issue - trying to install a Windows7Pro (media release is "Win7Pro/SP1 pre-installed") VM onto latest (1.8) proxmox KVM virtual machine.

Initial attempt was with stock "create new VM" (IDE HDD and IDE CDrom); did direct pass-through on CDrom to physical MS purchased DVDrom installer media.
Boots up fine, but then after telling it to "Install now" after ~1-2 minutes it comes back with an error,

"a required cd / dvd drive device driver is missing"

Google searches suggest this is an issue with the optical drive for sure. Some fixes I came across, which didn't appear to help:
- ensure ram is 2gigs or less
- make sure optical drive is 'slave'

I also tried, with no success:
- SCSI attached optical drive (system doesn't boot) (ie, use KVM "SCSI" instead of "IDE")
- use Paravirt for NIC and HDD: prompts for drivers for those, and proceeds as expected when given the Paravirt ISO - but still complains about the optical drive!

So .. I'm wondering if anyone knows of workarounds on this. One 'google fix idea' is to use SATA attached optical drive but I don't think we've got that option for KVM VMs. I don't know if there is a trick (?) to make a "SCSI" CDRom boot (?) or if there are any other options, barring doing a clean install of another OS (XP for example) and then upgrading (ugh).

I was wondering about trying to find the "IDE Drivers" for KVM / and prepare a fake "ISO" which contained those .. to present to Win7 Installer when it requests. But I'm not sure how/where to get such - the ISO from Redhat only has Paravirt drivers for NIC and HDD, but not a Win-Friendly IDE driver ..

any hints / comments are greatly appreciated,


Tim

 

[compsos]

They recommend VIRTIO instead of IDE or SATA.
If you will be using VIRTIO, here is the driver you need (http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/15/images/bin/virtio-win-0.1-mm34.iso) which needs to be uploaded thru your PVE console (ISO Images) then add 2nd IDE pointing to your VIRTIO driver.
Check image below.
<img src="attachment.php?attachmentid=547&amp;stc=1" attachmentid="547" alt="" id="vbattach_547" class="previewthumb">

 

[tom]

does it work if you use an ISO image of Win7sp1 instead of the physical DVD?

and give details about you physical sata cd-rom drive, how is this connected, chipset of your board?

 

[compsos]

Yes, it does work with Win7 ISO, even using a physical dvd Win7 installer.
It's an LG DVD-DL RW drive, SATA connected, the board is Gigabyte GA-945G-S3.

 

[fortechitsolutions]

does it work if you use an ISO image of Win7sp1 instead of the physical DVD?

and give details about you physical sata cd-rom drive, how is this connected, chipset of your board?

Hi Tom,

This is a brand new/current model Dell 2u rackmount server, dual-socket AMD Opteron (6 core CPUs). In Dmesg this is what I've got for the DVD drive - surprising, it appears to be IDE connection rather than SATA. (I'm not positive of the chipset since it is a dell system .. since AMD CPUs though the options are limited. I can find this out if it is important).

pata_atiixp 0000:00:14.1: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
scsi5 : pata_atiixp
scsi6 : pata_atiixp
ata5: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0xece0 ctl 0xecf8 bmdma 0xecc0 irq 16
ata6: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0xece8 ctl 0xecfc bmdma 0xecc8 irq 16
ses 0:0:32:0: Attached Enclosure device
ata5.00: ATAPI: TEAC DVD-ROM DV-28SW, R.2A, max UDMA/100
ata5.00: limited to UDMA/33 due to 40-wire cable
usb 2-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
ata5.00: configured for UDMA/33
scsi 5:0:0:0: CD-ROM            TEAC     DVD-ROM DV-28SW  R.2A PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 24x/24x cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
sr 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
sr 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 5

I did try using 'dd' to make an ISO from the physical DVD; an odd thing I've never seen: I only get 1.1 Gb ISO generated, but when I mount the DVD it presents itself as ~3Gigs of data. I've never seen the "dd iso generation" fail to capture the entire device.

I do get exactly the same behaviour when I did use the ISO generated in this manner; possibly? because the ISO is still attached via an IDE bus with KVM/Proxmox (?)


Tim

 

[fortechitsolutions]

They recommend VIRTIO instead of IDE or SATA.
If you will be using VIRTIO, here is the driver you need (http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/15/images/bin/virtio-win-0.1-mm34.iso) which needs to be uploaded thru your PVE console (ISO Images) then add 2nd IDE pointing to your VIRTIO driver.
Check image below.
<img src="attachment.php?attachmentid=547&amp;stc=1" attachmentid="547" alt="" id="vbattach_547" class="previewthumb">

Hi, thanks for this comment. This is in fact one scenario I've already tried (sorry if that wasn't clear from my initial posting) - and the Virtio HDD driver install proceeds fine, but it still complains about the driver for the DVD drive (ie, from which windows install media is being accessed). Somewhat absurd of course since the dvd is mounted and visible; it is a bit of a 'feature' of the win7 install from what I've been able to determine via google.

 

[fortechitsolutions]

Hi everyone,

I found the 'fix' for this problem and in hindsight it is 'simple'. But the error message is messy enough that it is somewhat misleading; coupled with the massive number of misleading hits located via google.

Hints on issue:
- a DVD mounted has ~3 gigs data; but dd copy to ISO file yields ~1.1 gigs only
- google hit suggesting that if you have a bad burned DVD, or an incomplete ISO download - you get this error message I'm seeing. Thus, it is incorrectly saying, "I want a driver for the CD / DVD drive" when it really means, "corrupt installler media, yuk".

Resolution:
- In my case, the server is remote but has decent bandwidth, so I just downloaded from a "Microsoft digital river" URL the appropriate ISO for Win7Pro/64bit (3.3gigs approx)
- once I had the ISO, correctly sized and intact, I did setup with:
(a) Paravirtual HDD
(b) IDE mounted ISO 1/2 for Win7 install 'media'
(c) IDE mounted ISO 2/2 for VirtIO drivers

- installer proceeded, didn't choke; when it failed to find HDD to install; used 'load driver' button; browsed to Paravirt driver disc; then HDD is visible
- proceeded with install, and it worked perfectly. Activated windows with the key I had from the DVD case for the legit media, it worked just fine.
- after install had to 'update driver' and point to the second VirtIO driver disk to get the paravirt Nic driver installed.
- after that .. all smooth sailing .. I'm patching the VM now but it is running perfectly.

So - the problem is easily fixed, no drama, just confusion over what this error message really means.

(In hindsight - I still don't know why the DVD disc is read poorly by this particular optical drive - because I did a test-install on my personal ProxVE server the night before from the same media to verify if Win7 would install smoothly - which it did (without activation being performed / with test VM instance deleted )- so it is kind of odd. But I guess some media - even original MS-pressed not burned media - doesn't like some drives; differentially...)

Hope this might help someone else in the future stuck in a similar box.


--Tim


Fortech IT Solutions
http://FortechITSolutions.ca