mapping a rawdisk *image*

[ZioNemo]

Hi,
I have the problem of moving a (quite old) winXP installation from a dead laptop to somewhere else... possibly a VM running under a Linux(ubuntu) host.
The laptop was an IBM ThinkPad T43p with the HD with two partitions (sda1/sda5).
Reason why I need to salvage the installation is I have a lot of proprietary software installed there and it would be difficult (if at all possible!) to recover all installation disks and just start over.
The hd is still fully working.
I extracted the disk contents (via dd) both dumping the whole disk and dumping the single partitions.
Now I am on the host machine.
Running

Code: Select all

VBoxManage convertfromraw -format VDI ibm_c.img ibm_c.vdi

got me a nice image which refuses to boot (hangs right after POST with no visible error; I cannot even try "safe mode").
I found a lot of hints on the Internet and I'm trying to follow them, If someone has fresh pointers ir hints they would be very welcome.
Before I lose too much time on this, however, I am wondering about the structure I would get:
XP expects to find a partition table with two partitions (actually: two primaries (boot and extended) and a secondary (filling the extended)), while I am providing it with a different structure (two distinct vdi will not be the same as a whole disk and the boot sector will be different, too!).
I am wondering if I can use something like

Code: Select all

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ibm_all.vmdk -rawdisk ibm_all.img -register

i.e. to create a raw disk reading from a file instead than from a block device, or alternatively, have some tool to convert a file in a block device (e.g.: losetup).
Can someone advise on the best course of action?
I will do some experimenting while I wait for Your suggestions

Thanks in advance
ZioNemo