Create and install sles10sp2 i386 guest using the following command

qemu-system-x86_64 -cdrom SLES-10-SP2-DVD-i386-GMC-DVD1.iso -hda
sles10sp2.i386.raw.img -m 1024 -net nic -net tap,script=/etc/qemu-ifup -vnc :10
-name sles10sp2_i386_guest -boot dc

reboot the guest. The second reboot should hang the guest. If not try a couple more times.


Note the problem cannot be reproduced 
   on amd box. or  with RHEL guests 
   can be consistently reproduced with -cdrom SLES-10-SP2-DVD-i386-GMC-DVD1.iso
   and -boot dc (in other words the default boot has to the SLES10SP2 cdrom)


The problem can be reproduced with opensuse 10.2 guests too.

I tried debugging the issue. I put in a couple of prints in bios.bin from the bochs, and find that the hang is consistently seen in the function 
ata_detect() sometime after the call to 


if (ata_cmd_data_in(device,ATA_CMD_IDENTIFY_DEVICE, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0L, 0L, get_SS(),buffer) !=0 )
        BX_PANIC("ata-detect: Failed to detect ATA device\n");



There are times when dmesg will report something like this

emulation failed (pagetable) rip ff1d 69 74 74 65


there are other incarnations of the symptoms too, all hinting at some major corruption.