How to change the controller driver of a Windows VM to VirtIO¶
- Add a new virtio disk (a small one, even 100mb will be enough. We will not be using it)
- Use virt manager
- or
virsh edit
- Boot the machine
- Make sure Windows recognises the disk controller and has the drivers for it (the disk should be visible in diskmgmt.msc)
- Set boot to fail safe mode
- Launch an elevated command prompt
- Type
bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
- Shut down
- Change the main disk to virtio
- Boot. Now get into the admin prompt and disable failsafe mode.
- Launch an elevated command prompt
- Type
bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
- Reboot and make sure everything works.
- Now you can shut down the machine and remove the small virtio disk