Real WinXP partition running under VirtualBox... (answer)

[kitepilot at kitepilot.com]

Believe me, if _I_ can do it, it is not _THAT_ complicated...   :) 

The 2 key points are:
1.- Create your profile in windoze (valid for XP, Vista is another ball of 
wax and 7 is utterly unknown to me) 

2.- Create the disk for VBox pointing to the windoze partition *NOT* the 
entire hard drive (unless you have toes of Titanium). 

Even though I found links with "most" of the instructions, most everything 
was scattered all over the place and I didn't save the links. 

I ran a quick search and found a few:
http://dotneverland.blogspot.com/2008/08/running-your-physical-windows-xp.ht 
ml 

There are too many variants as to point to a single page.  Many will talk 
about users and permissions that you better don't follow blindly.  I had to 
include the group "disk" to my user so I could access the  partition.
Ugly, I know, but you hack what you have to hack...   ;-)
ET 

PS: Use dogpile.com for searches... 

 


Stephen writes: 

> i would love to see a link to those "fine grained instructions" you
> had found. i find this an interesting project. 
> 
> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:04 PM, kitepilot at kitepilot.com
> <kitepilot at kitepilot.com> wrote:
>> Hello PLUG! 
>>
>> Sometime ago I asked how to run a "hard" WinXP partition under VirtualBox.
>> Well, it ain't so difficult...   :) 
>>
>> This is what I did: (fine-grain steps are described elsewhere in the WEB) 
>>
>> Before shutting down Windoze, I created a new "profile". 
>>
>> I installed Kubuntu 9.10 in a flash-drive and, of course, installed
>> VirtualBox. 
>>
>> Then I booted from the "stick", started VBox, created a hard-drive for the
>> physical WinXP partition using commands available in the "User's manual"
>> (RTFM?!?!?!) and created a machine for XP attached to that drive. 
>>
>> Finally I booted WinXP in VBox, chose my "virtual" profile, installed
>> drivers and guest additions and now the XP machine is just an afterthought
>> where I get emails and IMs while working (secretly ;-) in my Linux
>> machine...   :) 
>>
>> I can also pull the stick and boot the machine from its normal boot record
>> and the only trace left is the profile and the guest additions (which were
>> not really needed) 
>>
>> WinXP performance sucks, but I hardly use that machine anyway... 
>>
>> I like it!   8)
>> THANKS!!!   :)
>> ET
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>  
> 
> 
> -- 
> A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
> rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. 
> 
> Stephen
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