I obviously missed the Gentoo part. Anyway, if QEMU complains about not being able to find bios.bin, then it is because it is looking in the wrong place, either due to you specifying the wrong -L or because the default location of the new build is looking in the wrong place.
However looking at every command line example you are giving, I notice you are specifying -fda in every one of them. Are you really intending to try and install win2003 on a floppy???? -fda/-fdb file use 'file' as floppy disk 0/1 image -- 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?