virtualizing existing Windows Vista, not entire disk

[joseo]

Hi all,

I've found the tutorial on how to virtualize an existing windows installation here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows

However, it outlines that, right now, is not possible to virtualize only the windows partition. I'd like to virtualize an existing windows (vista) installation that is sharing physical disk with an ubuntu partition. The Vista installation is about 20GB, and the linux installation is about 100GB (in a Extended partition). Does anybody know if its possible to virtualize *only* the Vista data? If it isn't possible: would it be possible, after that, to "shrink" the virtual disk to make it fit only to the Vista needed space (I really don't want to spend 100GB in a "dead" zone in the virtual disk)

Thanks in advance,
Jose

[mpack]

A partition by itself is not bootable, creating a bootable virtual disk from a partition image could be complicated to do. I suggest instead that you virtualize the entire disk (using Disk2VHD), then investigate ways to delete the unwanted partition. On the latter task: it's not something I've ever needed to do, but gparted is the first place I'd look.