Please post any comments/suggestions etc in this thread: Howto: Windows XP in both VM and native - DISCUSSION
Modedit: [TerryE] I have told VT that we will police this request by deleting any posts other than his from this topic, so please follow this suggestion.
I thought I'd summarise how I got WinXP running in a "dual" boot (running a single Windows installation both in VirtualBox and natively). Many thanks to TerryE for his input.
This article covers how to set up such a configuration from scratch. If you're looking to boot an existing Windows installation in VirtualBox please have a look at HOWTO: manage VDIs and import native installations instead. While using an existing installation is less work initially you're very likely to encounter driver related problems if you want to keep booting the installation natively also. This is why I chose to write about a from-scratch method instead.
WARNING: Only follow these instructions if you understand what you're doing, I'm not responsible for you losing your data!
Notes
- The methods described below have been tested using VirtualBox v1.6.6 and v2.0.4 with a Windows XP SP2 32-bit guest and Ubuntu 8.04 32-bit host.
- SATA support for raw disk access is broken in VirtualBox v2 versions prior to 2.0.4 (but not v1.6.6, see ticket #2182) ** Edit: v2.0.4 needs a workaround, see the ticket
- If you find any errors or spelling mistakes (however small) please let me know via PM (unless it's major). If on the other hand you have suggestions reply to this thread.
- And finally: Before replying with a question a) read the manual and b) search the forums. Most questions will have been answered before.