virtualbox.org

I shall try VB when I get a free weekend, so I don't know it yet. But there's one very basic issue I don't understand fully.

It seems that VB does nothing until a guest OS is installed in it, correct? What if my only source of Win98SE are the OS files in the hard drive of my 10-year old Toshiba laptop? I have no Win98SE installation disks other than OEM disks from Toshiba for reinstalling the Win98SE on the laptop (together with Toshiba utilities, etc.) Anyway, even if the Toshiba OEM disks are usable in VB -- very unlikely -- I would be missing 100 years of updates to the original Win98SE, which I don't think are available any more.

So, is there a way to "glom" the Win98SE on the laptop to become the guest OS on VB? ("Glom" is hereby made a copyrighted term, but you can use it.)

I am asking related questions elsewhere on your forum here --
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=39757

But I think this particular question here is more general.

Thanks!

glnz wrote:It seems that VB does nothing until a guest OS is installed in it, correct?

VirtualBox is doing its job - which is to emulate hardware - whether you choose to install an operating system on that hardware or not. You don't have to install an OS, for example you could boot a live CD instead. However if you do wish to install an operating system then yes you will need the appropriate setup disk, or perhaps a P2V image of another PC. I see you are already discussing the latter in your other thread, which means that you should not discuss it here.

mpack: Thanks. As I'm a newbie, how does one make a P2V image of my old Win98SE laptop PC? Is there a free version of the P2V app?

Sorry to ask, but what do you mean by "live CD" - a CD with a sort-of OS on it?

If you have any links for me to look at - maybe VB for Dummies, please suggest.

Try using google with those terms. Your discussion of "Ghost" in the other thread is a P2V discussion. Cross posting is not allowed, hence I will not participate in a duplicate discussion here.