create an image

Creating a bootable qemu image from a root filesystem and bootloader

Create a hard disk image

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

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
```
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)
Create a file syatem for the root partiotion
```
mke2fs /dev/hda1
```
Mount the partition
```
mkdir disk
mount /dev/hda1 disk
```
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
```

Uncompress the files

cd disk
tar -jxvf <compressed filesystem>

Unmount the mounted partition
```
cd .. 
umount disk
```
power off the guest OS.
```
poweroff
```
To make the file syatem bootable download a grub floppy image
```
<http://hurd.in/pub/Hurd/HurdOnVMware/grub.img>
```

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

Mount your grub image

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

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