I'm trying to run a Windows 11 VM and I cannot for the life of me get it to boot and enter into the installation. When I start the VM I get the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." if I press anything it shows the Unraid logo then after a few minutes it'll reset showing the "Press any key.." message. If I just leave it to it's own devices it'll show a warning "No bootable option or device was found", which makes sense given the drive is empty. I've tried all sorts of different settings but main I grab the Windows 11 template and change:

• CPU Mode: Emulated (QEMU64)

• vCPUs: 4

• Machine: Q35 9.2 (I've tried a few different options but this was suggested in the docs)

• OS Install ISO: <path to my ISO>

• VirtIO Drivers ISO: <path to my VirtIO drivers>

I've tried two different ISOs, one a modified Windows ISO and one directly from Microsoft, both behave the same. Loading up the ISOs on my local machine in Virtual Box they run no problem so it doesn't seem like an ISO problem. I have another VM already running no problem so I know my machine can run VMs. I've checked the logs and I don't see any errors or warnings.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or what to try at this point. Any help getting a Windows VM up and running would be appreciated!

Machine Info

• Unraid: 7.2.4

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT

• RAM: 48GB DDR4, ~35% average usage

Edited Tuesday at 05:17 PM1 day by amura11

Sounds more like an ISO issue to me, but please post the diagnostics after this happens

That seems to be the general advise I keep seeing but this has happened across multiple ISOs including ISOs right from MS which work on a local machine. Here's the diagnostics, you can see a few of my previous attempts listed in there but the most recent one was Win11-IssueTest1, this uses the aforementioned Windows 11 ISO downloaded from the MS website.

clow-diagnostics-20260906-1124.zip

The diagnostics point to the CPU mode.

Every captured Windows attempt uses Emulated (QEMU64). The current test uses a Windows 11 25H2 ISO. qemu64 exposes a limited, older CPU feature set, although your physical Ryzen CPU supports the instructions required by current Windows versions.

Stop the VM and change only CPU Mode to Host Passthrough. Keep Q35-9.2, OVMF TPM, the virtual disk, and the same Microsoft ISO unchanged. Then start the VM and press a key at the optical-media prompt.

If setup still resets with Host Passthrough, please post new diagnostics collected after that attempt and before Force Stop.

Switching from the emulated CPU to passthrough worked. Didn't realize how much of a difference that makes, thanks for the help!