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  1. RHEL
  2. RHEL-7110

[seabios] Can't boot from a disk with 4K sector size

    • seabios-1.16.3-2.el9
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    • sst_virtualization
    • ssg_virtualization
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    • Known Issue
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      .SeaBIOS cannot boot from a disk with 4096 bytes sector size

      When using SeaBIOS to boot a virtual machine (VM) from a disk that uses logical or physical sector size of 4096 bytes, the boot disk is not displayed as available, and booting the VM fails. To boot a VM from such a disk, use UEFI instead of SeaBIOS.
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      .SeaBIOS cannot boot from a disk with 4096 bytes sector size When using SeaBIOS to boot a virtual machine (VM) from a disk that uses logical or physical sector size of 4096 bytes, the boot disk is not displayed as available, and booting the VM fails. To boot a VM from such a disk, use UEFI instead of SeaBIOS.
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      Description of problem:
      It is not possible to boot from a disk with physical/logical sector size of 4096 bytes. The disk is listed in the boot order configuration section of a VM in VirtManager (as well as in the VM XML configuration obtained via virsh dumpxml), however once the VM is started, this disk is ignored completely. The VM doesn't attempt to boot from it and it is not even listed in the available boot devices shown upon VM start.

      However, the disk is available to the VM and can be used for installation.

      Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
      libvirt-8.5.0-7.el9_1.x86_64, qemu-kvm-7.0.0-13.el9.x86_64

      How reproducible:
      100%

      Steps to Reproduce:
      1. Create a VM with one disk, modify the configuration via virsh edit, so that the disk uses 4K physical and logical block sizes by inserting blockio element into the <disk> configuration:
      <blockio logical_block_size='4096' physical_block_size='4096'/>
      2. Enable the boot menu on machine start and make sure the disk is selected as one of the available boot devices
      3. Start the VM and observe the boot menu.

      Actual results:
      The disk is not available as a boot device and the VM won't boot from it. It can also be seen in the configuration XML that there is boot order set for the disk.

      Expected results:
      The disk is available for boot - both for manual selection in the menu and for automated boot based on the configured boot order.

              rhn-engineering-ghoffman Gerd Hoffmann
              rhn-support-jikortus Jiri Kortus
              virt-maint virt-maint
              Xueqiang Wei Xueqiang Wei
              Jiří Herrmann Jiří Herrmann
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                Created:
                Updated:
                Resolved: