using Windows bootcamp partition as virtual machine

mroslevich · Post by **mroslevich** » 9. Oct 2008, 19:00

Is there any way to be able to take an existing partition on the hard drive, and use it in VirtualBox as a virtual machine?

I dual boot Mac OS 10.3.9 and WinXP SP3 with my work laptop, and its just a pain to reboot and switch OSes to test software and drivers updates before putting them mainstream. I would set up a virtual XP machine, but I don't have an ISO of the image. It's all in Norton Ghost format (.gho)...

Documentation · Post by **vkov_tinsky** » 9. Oct 2008, 19:05

Have a look at HOWTO: manage VDIs and import native installations. There's also Howto: Windows XP in VM and native and although that covers a setup from scratch it does illustrate what will be required.

Regards,
VT

JimBushWhack · Post by **JimBushWhack** » 9. Oct 2008, 23:56

This capability, although stated to be supported, currently does not work in VBox version 2.02. See past entries in the forum entitled "Using a raw hard disk on Mac OS X" (Around Sept 6) and "Raw disk access in Leopard?" (September 20). There was also a defect ticket written up on this as well (ticket #1461). I'm in hopes that this defect is fixed in the next major release of VBox.

jarre · Post by **jarre** » 1. Dec 2008, 16:14

is there no easy way to migrate the boot camp partion to VB ?

Whit the two other Programms (yea the ones how cost$) there is easy to migrate the boot camp !!!

thanks
sicnerly
Jarre

JimBushWhack · Post by **JimBushWhack** » 1. Dec 2008, 20:14

Not that I am aware of. The fact that it does not work is the result of bugs in the CLI commands. I wish there was a way to move the fix for this higher on the priority list, or at least find out what the time frame is for getting it fixed. But I don't know of any way to do that.

In meantime, I am using a regular Vbox virtual WinXP image with relatively few problems.