Need Virtualization Advice

[kitepilot at kitepilot.com]

I use Virtualbox in my daytime job laptop.
I was told to "not to touch the partitions", so I boot from a USB HD in 
Linux and run the laptop inside virtualbox. 

If need be, I can shut down, unplug the USB and boot the laptop bare metal 
in the same box I run it virtual.
Cool'stuff...   :)
ET 

 

Mark Phillips writes: 

> I have managed to fill up my laptop's dual boot (Win 7 and Debian testing)
> 320 GB drive, so I have a new shiny 750 GB drive to install. I have tried
> to use Clonezilla, and it keeps failing because the old drive has 512 byte
> sectors and the new drive has 4096 byte sectors. No problem; I will just
> create a system image of the Windows partitions to move that to the new
> drive, net install Debian testing, and copy over my user files. 
> 
> However, I was thinking that I could get rid of the dual boot and just
> virtualize the Windows partition. My questions - 
> 
> 1. Can I create a virtual version of my Windows 7 Home Premium using the
> system recovery disk and the backup on my external usb drive? So far, it
> installs to the new 750 GB drive with no issues. I don't have any original
> media disks. 
> 
> 2. Vmware or Virtualbox? Do either one support usb so I can run iTunes on
> my virtual Windows drive? A while ago I was able to get vmware to run off
> of the Windows disk partition, but it seemed to break every time I ran an
> upgrade on Debian, and it was a pain to get it to work each time. I don't
> want to fiddle with this approach again, unless I have to. 
> 
> Thanks for your suggestions! 
> 
> Mark