VirtIO Driver Not Found When Installing Windows 2008 R2

Question

I have been over nearly every guide to installing Windows 2008 R2 in KVM, and have read all that I can about the virtio driver disk, but I continue to get the same result:

As you can see, the VirtIO disk has been loaded, and it's finding some drivers (if I uncheck the hide option, I see far more), but I cannot get past this dumb screen.

The exact command line I'm using to install is as follows:

virt-install -n xm_zdc02 -r 1024 -c /vz/images/en_windows_server_2008_r2_standard_enterprise_datacenter_web_x64_dvd_x15-50365.iso --os-type=windows --disk=/vz/xm_zdc02.img,size=120 --vnc --vncport=7018 --vnclisten=192.168.2.80 --noautoconsole -v --autostart --disk path=/vz/images/virtio-win-0.1-22.iso,device=cdrom,perms=ro

The host is as follows:

• OS: Debian Squeeze
• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9400 @ 2.66GHz
• RAM: 16GB
• Motherboard: Asus P5Q PRO TURBO

I'm completely lost, and could use some direction at this point.

Answer 1

I wanted to point out that the image you uploaded shows that you are trying to install the balloon driver.

There are different VirtIO drivers for memory, networking and hard disk. The balloon driver obviously will not help with installing 2008 R2 onto your VirtIO disk.

EDIT:

I have since discovered that the best virtio drivers are the ones provided by the big vendors.

Try doing a KVM install using SL6 and use the windowsservercatalog drivers which you can download for free from microsoft. www.windowsservercatalog.com search for "Red Hat" or "VirtIO".

Alternatively you can try the RHN virtio-win package. The RPM package provides a vfd.

It is definitely possible to have the virtio disk work during install as it is documented by Redhat. http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Virtualization_Host_Configuration_and_Guest_Installation_Guide/chap-Virtualization_Host_Configuration_and_Guest_Installation_Guide-Para_virtualized_drivers.html#form-Virtualization_Host_Configuration_and_Guest_Installation_Guide-Para_virtualized_drivers-Installing_with_a_virtualized_floppy_disk

Whether this is possible or not, seems to depend on vendor support. I know when I was dabbling with opensuse 12.04 the documentation for KVM specifically said that it was NOT possible and that the drivers had to be added after install.