Giving up on my gaming VM

In a previous post, I talked about how PCI Passthrough stopped functioning on the one computer that I used it with.  I had 2 VMs that used PCI Passthrough.  One was a multi-function Windows VM.  I passthroughed a USB controller card.  The only reason why I do this is because Xen's USB passthough isn't very functional.  I have 2 USB devices that I passthough: an X10 Firecracker wireless transmitter and an Eaton Home Heartbeat base station.  This VM also hosts the Nightowl software to view my security cameras.  It is my home automation and security "computer".  I never really had the X10 and Home Heartbeat working, however.  I wrote a python script that allowed me to send emails when water was detected in my basement, but it got shifted lower in priority.

My second VM was my gaming VM.  I passthoughed a video card and a USB controller card.  Although I haven't been gaming as much, the computer as still been used.  We have been getting a lot of visitors recently, and a lot of times, people want to look at pictures.  Although the MK802 can do that, people tend to like the Windows interface (for some reason).  They want to use a mouse and control everything.  Also, it came in handy when we wanted to compare photos.

Because this VM still gets regular use, and its primary function won't work anymore, I had to give up on the VM.  I started re-arranging hardware and turned my Ubuntu desktop (which I used only on occasion) into the gaming/living room PC.  It already had a 120GB SSD.  I dd'ed the QCOW2 image onto the SDD.  I tried turning on the computer.  The Windows boot screen came up, but it blue screened.  After booting into recovery mode, Windows told me that it could not repair the problem.  It suggested that a hardware change caused the problem, and that I should "undo" the hardware change.  I guess changing from a virtual to physical computer was too big of a change for Windows.  I ended up reinstalling on top of the existing Windows install.

Overall, I am sad that I am no longer using a VM.  The QCOW2 image format provided the BEST backup system I have ever used.  I was able to copy the entire disks over the network, then take a snapshot.  I did this weekly.  Now, I have to rely on Windows Backup and Restore.  Backup and Restore seems to be a lot better on Windows 7, though.  The install DVD lets me restore an OS from a backup.  I had other issues getting Windows 7 running, but those aren't related to the Xen conversion, so I will leave that rant for another post.