What were you trying to do that didn't work?

In KubeVirt we run a lane to verify Windows 2016 is able to boot and respond to commands after code changes or changes to the build. This lane uses a raw image that contains a pre-configured Windows guest. When upgrading QEMU in the virt-launcher to 9.1.0-24.el9 or higher (but staying on 9.1.0), the pre-configured guest fails to read its disk properly.

It still boots up halfway but then runs an endless loop instead of going to the login screen. Running commands via WinRM often fails with reasons pointing to a corrupted disk.

Going back to 9.1.0-23.el9 or older immediately fixes the issues with the exact same image.

The guest uses the SATA bus and E1000 NIC, no virtio devices.

What is the impact of this issue to you?

Upgrading QEMU to a recent version is not possible, there seems to a regression.

Please provide the package NVR for which the bug is seen:

qemu-kvm 9.1.0-24.el9.x86_64

How reproducible is this bug?:

Every time

Steps to reproduce

1. Upgrade to qemu-kvm 9.1.0-24.el9.x86_64
2. Boot guest
3. Observe that guest has issues with reading files from disk

Expected results

Guest should keep working after upgrade

Actual results

Guest fails to read files from disk after upgrade