Virtualization for Beginner

S P Arif Sahari Wibowo arifsaha at yahoo.com
Sat May 2 14:42:08 UTC 2009


On Wed, 22 Apr 2009, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
> It seems that VM Wizard wants to create an "image", but my 
> problem is, that I already have a multiboot setup with XP in 
> it's own primary partition.

Using real / raw / physical partition in a virtual machine can 
be tricky and risky. It is especially risky when that partition 
is on the same disk as the primary OS, since the VM will have 
access to the whole disk (not just the partition), and that 
means that 2 running OS accessing the same HD. If there is 
something wrong with the running VM, the HD can be corrupted.

Anyway, AFAIK in the VirtualBox user manual there is a section 
about using real / raw / physical disk / partitions: how, why, 
adn the risks. You may have to run it from command line.

> The choices I have is to:
> 1) Create new hard disk
> 2) Use existing hard disk
>
> and then it has a drop down for `media'
>
> What exactly does it mean by choice (2)?

Means using virtual disk image created earlier from other VM 
session.

> Do I have to use the XP CD/DVD and create a NEW hard disk 
> partition or what?  What are my options?

You should create new image, and - yes - using a MS Windows XP 
CD/DVD to install new MS Windows XP installation. Yes you will 
need to activate this installation later. This is the most 
straightforward method to use VM.

There is another path by migrating exiting Windows installation, 
but AFAIK that can be tricky as well.

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