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Creating a bootable qemu image from a root filesystem and bootloader

1. Create a hard disk image

        qemu-img create -f qcow <imagename.img> <size>G

2. Use a live CD (better to have a lighter OS like system rescue CD to make the
    process faster) and the image created to boot.

        qemu -cdrom /dev/cdrom -hda <imagename.img> -boot d

3. Once system is booted use a partition editing tool (like fdisk, cfdisk,
    parted, gparted, qtparted ...) to partition the image.

        cfdisk

    create the necessary partitions (root and swap partitions boot, home ... if
    required)

4. Create a file syatem for the root partiotion

        mke2fs /dev/hda1

5. Mount the partition 

        mkdir disk
        mount /dev/hda1 disk

6. Copy the file system from the host machine to the mounted directory (use a
    compressed file system to make the copying faster)

    Grab the GNU spapshot from ams' site
    <http://www.update.uu.se/~ams/home/slask/GNU/>

        scp <user>@<host>:<path to the compressed file system> disk

7. Uncompress the files

        cd disk
        tar -jxvf <compressed filesystem>

8. Unmount the mounted partition

        cd .. 
        umount disk

9. power off the guest OS.

        poweroff

10. To make the file syatem bootable download a grub floppy image

        <http://hurd.in/pub/Hurd/HurdOnVMware/grub.img>

11. Run qemu to boot into your brand new system 

        qemu -hda <hard disk image.img> -fda grub.img -boot a

Happy Hacking !!


Make your new system boot from the hard disk

1. Mount your grub image

        mkdir floppy
        mount -t ext2 -o loop grub.img floppy

2. Use previous steps 2 and 5 to boot from a liveCD and mount the partition

        cd disk/boot
        scp -r <user>@<host>:<path to mounted floppy image directory>/boot/grub

3. Poweroff the guest

        poweroff

4. Boot new system using floppy image previous step 11

    use install to hard disk option if you used the above grub image

    or go to grub command line and type

        root (hd0,0)
        setup (hd0)

    Now you have a bootable system image. Enjoy Maadi !!