This will help you: http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Boot_from_virtio_block_device
xuanmao_001 From: Yaodong Yang Date: 2013-09-09 13:02 To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org; qemu-disc...@nongnu.org Subject: [Qemu-discuss] virtio with Windows 8. Hi all, 1. I create a raw image named as win8.img, using the following command: /usr/local/kvm/bin/qemu-img create -f raw win8.img 20G 2. I try to install win8 with the following command, but I failed several times. sudo /usr/local/kvm/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -drive file=./win8.img,if=virtio,cache=none -cdrom ./win8.iso -boot d -m 2048. 3. I try the same command but with if=ide, it works. Could someone tell me the reason for this failure? I appreciate it very much! yaodong