Boot an existing XP (Physical HD) install with VMWare

[gumbi18]

After some digging around the interweb a while back I discovered that there is two separate methods to running an existing Windows partition in VMware.

I take credit for none of these websites-
http://mazimi.wordpress.com/2007/06/...-within-linux/
This I have tested and does work, however as McMonarch mentioned there is issues with using the same Windows partition. There is a method around this which I will mention further down.
http://www.venturecake.com/a-simple-...pps-in-ubuntu/
Another example of the VMware server method.


http://www.advicesource.org/ubuntu/R...re_player.html
This method involves a little bit of trickery with the program 'parted'. The instructions are clear. I couldn't get this method to work mainly because of my slightly dodgy MBR.

To get around the activation problems with running Windows on effectively two machines I discovered this tutorial that works, I have tested and confirmed this myself.
http://mazimi.wordpress.com/2007/07/...-virtualizing/
This may be technically illegal in most countries so I don't endorse it, but I am willing to make the information available to the community.

Hopefully that helps the previous posters.


EDIT: Thanks gumbi18 for collating this information.

bodhi.zazen

[Victory]

I'd like to note that the instructions for the first method are for users with SCSI hard drives. Using the SCSI instructions on a IDE drive often results in BSODs when launching Windows in the VM. For those using IDE a set of instructions are available here: http://www.squidoo.com/use-existing-...apps-in-ubuntu

[rax_m]

Hi

I tried to use this method : http://mazimi.wordpress.com/2007/06/...-within-linux/

However, when I get to step 12(?) where I have to select the partitions for linux and windows I run into a problem. On my setup, I have linux and windows on separate drives. Like so:
Linux, swap : sda
Windows, /home : sdb

I can't really change this as it is the way the company has setup the computer.

Any ideas how I select the correct partitions?

Thanks
Rax

[dbsoundman]

The problem I'm having now is twofold:
1) Windows doesn't seem to see my mouse, so I can't click on anything.
2) Windows wants me to validate my installation or something like that. I think for one my problem is that I haven't yet done that with a wired LAN connection, but I'm wondering if it will work either way. Nothing weird happens when I boot into Windows at startup, but the VM is not so hot yet.

-Dan

[mallegonian]

Is your LAN in the VM set to NAT?

I solved my problem by installing the SCSI driver.

[dbsoundman]

I've tried LAN bridged and NAT. I did finally get the validation thing done, all I needed was a wired network connection, but I still don't have any mouse control (and yes I am clicking into the VM). Additionally, it seems to consume an inordinate amount of resources. I gave it 512MB of RAM to use out of the 1 or 2 (can't remember) GB of RAM on the laptop, but it also seems to just eat my processor speed, which is weird because it's a dual core processor and usually works fine. I'm not even running anything in Ubuntu, but everything (both OSes) get really sluggish and almost freeze. Windows actually usually does freeze when I try to install VMware Tools. It's just strangely slow, and I don't know why; maybe because I have both OSes on a single drive but different partitions? Any help?

-Dan

[dbsoundman]

OK, I finally got it running. It was extremely slow, and it's still not really fast, but I finally got it to behave long enough to get VMware Tools installed (it took a lot of waiting), and now the mouse works and everything. The only issue I still have is I need to figure out how I can access my shared "media" partition from the Windows VM. It is a partition that has my /home directory, which is also used by Windows for my documents and such. When I try to go direct in the Windows VM, it says that the drive is not formatted. I have already installed Ext2IFS, so that's not the issue I don't think. What do I need to do to set this up?

Thanks,
Dan

[mallegonian]

DO NOT mount the same partition from two operating systems at the same time. This could seriously mess up the filesystem.

I am also having CPU time problems. I gave windows one cpu, but it totally freezes linux when it is thinking at all. On the other hand this is the fastest windows has ever run for me...

Do not use ext2ifs, because this will try to mount it, which is only safe if it is exclusively or read only for both. Open the vmware tools dialog inside the vm and on one of the tabs there is a shared folder option.

You may be able to drag and drop stuff into the vmware window and it will copy it. For shared folders I'm not sure, because in my vm it won't let me enable them. I really don't know why. This would be very helpful for programs that certain parts like updaters only work in windows but the actual program runs fine in wine.

[dbsoundman]

I didn't think the double mount would work...

I recall that I was able to set up a shared folder one time on a different VM setup...it was a Windows 2000 install that I did through VMware though, it wasn't pre-existing. I used it to rip music from CDs, so I would rip them into a folder in windows, which was shared via a networked folder in Ubuntu. So when the VM was running, I could open that folder in Ubuntu and get my windows documents. I guess what I need to figure out is how to do the opposite; set up a shared folder that I can access from the VM Windows to get to the files in the Ubuntu /home partition. Does that make sense? How do I do it?

-Dan

[mallegonian]

I can't explain it too well right now as I just managed to get windows to keep BSOD'ing on boot again. something about "login", and it's really short, so idk.

Google it. There should be something in the vmware tools dialog in the virtual windows.