If you built your own qemu it may try to look for the BIOS in /usr/local/share/qemu and not where it was originally installed on your system. Could you please try to specify it with the -L option and see.
You don't mention what system you are running on, it would likely be -L /usr/share/qemu-kvm or -L /usr/share/qemu but it depends on the system. Jes -- WinXP install cd hangs at boot time if machine started with floppy https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/586420 You received this bug notification because you are a member of qemu- devel-ml, which is subscribed to QEMU. Status in QEMU: Incomplete Bug description: I have a second problem: I wanted to install Windows Server 2003 on a virtio drive, so I tried to start the machine with the install cd as the boot drive and a floppy image with the viostor drivers. The problem is, the install cd hangs at boot time. If I start VNC I just see a black ground with 640x480. I've also tried this with the install cd of Windows Server 2008 R2 and it works! Could it be that the BIOS screws up because the older install cds are using the floppy emulation to boot the setup?