Can I modify "mbr" on virtual machine.

[khentiamentiu]

I just spent more than a day copying a Windows XP hard drive to an image file, converting that to a vdi file, and finally, installing the virutal machine, only to discover that the mbr was configured to boot grub, on a different computer. Is there any way to do the equivalent of an "install-mbr" on a VirtualBox machine that I can't boot, or do I need to do an install-mbr on the original, and copy and convert the whole damn drive again. Argh.

[mpack]

VirtualBox provides no such tool, if that is what you are asking. However, any such tool you find online can be run inside the guest just as on any other PC.

It should not have taken a day to image a Windows PC. Depending on disk size it should have taken around 20-60 minutes, assuming a decent imaging tool such as Disk2VHD or Acronis. Did you run MergeIDE, and did the other preparations for XP migration before starting?

[khentiamentiu]

VirtualBox provides no such tool, if that is what you are asking. However, any such tool you find online can be run inside the guest just as on any other PC.

The problem is that I can't boot the guest, can't get past grub in the mbr.

It should not have taken a day to image a Windows PC. Depending on disk size it should have taken around 20-60 minutes, assuming a decent imaging tool such as Disk2VHD or Acronis. Did you run MergeIDE, and did the other preparations for XP migration before starting?

Sorry, I wasn't clear about that. What took a day was copying the image off my old computer. I thought it would take less time, but between low memory, slow cpu, and usb 1.0 ports, it took a long time to copy an 80gb drive to an image on an external hdd. I still have the image, but if I can't modify the mbr, it's useless and I'll need to modify the mbr on the original drive before copying it again. This time I'll probably just pull the drive, stick in on an ide/usb adapter, and create the guest more directly. However, I was hoping for a simple step that would just allow me to modify the mbr in the guest.

[mpack]

Warning: make a backup copy of the drive image before experimenting with it.

You don't need to modify the original drive. Look for a tool that you can run from a rescue floppy/cd or similar. Boot the VM from that floppy/cd.

You should think of the VM as an actual separate PC, and think of what you can do to fix it like any other PC!

In fact I would have thought some kind of grub repair tool would be a possibility for you as well. Linux users here manage to boot with grub no problem.

Another possiblility is to do a fresh Windows install in a new VM, attach your P2V image as a 2nd drive, and try running fixmbr on it. A basic XP installation can be very useful for things like this and as a template for future cloned VMs.

[khentiamentiu]

You don't need to modify the original drive. Look for a tool that you can run from a rescue floppy/cd or similar. Boot the VM from that floppy/cd.

You should think of the VM as an actual separate PC, and think of what you can do to fix it like any other PC!

Yeah, I finally figured that out. I've been using VirtualBox for about four days now, don't yet have the hang of it. Anyway, I started up the client, "mounted" and booted the XP installation CD, and ran fixmbr. Seemed the simplest way to go. I'm running everything else as multiple boots from a grub partition on one of my "real" hard drives, so I didn't yet have a Linux client in VirtualBox whose grub tools I could have used to modify this mbr. Anyway, that's a topic for another message if I don't figure it out otherwise.

Thanks for the help!