Shoutbox

Does anyone know about using a Virtrual OS without using a VHD?

For example, you have an OS allready installed, allready configured, but have little HDD space, so it is possible to run that allready installed OS in a virtruall machine?

If you are using Windows (most likely) then most likely it's not possible. Windows won't work if you plug the HDD into another (different) computer, so it shouldn't work in a VM that way.

If it's Linux then it should work.

However, keep in mind that you can't do that if you boot from the HDD you want the VM to use since it needs exclusive access to the HDD.

I use Linux, i want to boot my Windows at times while using Linux.

So what program and how do i go about doing it?

Why would you want to boot windows?

Anyway, try VirtualBox IIRC, it supports real drives as virtual drives. But it won't probably work with the already installed windows because the virtual hardware is different than the computer you originally installed windows on.

Back in the days when I used to fiddle around a bit with a Gentoo installation, I found an article on the gentoo wiki about this: clicky
(The wiki is sort of gentoo specific, but the windows part should be the same for all linux distro's)

The only downside to this is that you'll have to select a hardware profile everytime you boot into windows.

Also, the wiki only describes how to configure windows XP. I don't know if it applies to Vista too.

EDIT: oh yeah, don't try to boot your windows installation inside a VM running under the same windows installation. You WILL get a BSOD

Silly question, but is there really any point in VMing a proper hard disk?

I know you can mount partitions but like everyone else said, doing this on Windows is a bad idea. I would imagine that the VM program would actually lock the partition, which would in turn lock the OS out from using the disk.

Which is bad.

Yeah i was wanting to run Vista while using Linux .

Im also sorely tempted to do Seamless Virtrulisation for linux (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SeamlessVirtualization).

And thanks for your replies Ill try using Virtruallbox after werk.