Emulating bare metal hardware in VirtualBox

[maja]

I'm posting in this sub-forum because I guess this may be interesting to other users as well, but my machine will be a Linux host with a Windows 7 guest.

I'm planning to delete my Windows 7 partition and move that copy to a virtual machine in a Linux system in the same physical machine.
I read in the post below that there are some ways to have a virtual machine appear as it were the original hardware the Windows license was used on.

I don't have intention to break any law, but I would like to have two versions Windows in the same laptop in which it was pre-installed by the OEM.
One copy would be a "factory condition" version that I will use just out of curiosity to check which changes were actually made by the OEM to the vanilla operating system, the second copy would be a "clean install" of Windows 7 that I will use inside the virtual machine and will probably require a phone activation.

[maja]

This is the webpage I stumbled upon the and led me to came here to ask for some clarification: is it possible to setup a virtual machine in a way that an OEM operating system will install or recover as if it were the bare metal?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... st12293480

[mpack]

Moved to "Windows Guests".

P2V without Windows noticing the change? The answer to your question is almost certainly no. You cannot create arbitrary hardware recipes with VirtualBox: VBox emulates specific motherboard chipsets and graphics/network cards, and if the PC to be emulated previously used something else then you are done - unless you want to write the new emulations yourself.

[maja]

I guess I will take a look at the existing emulations then..

[mpack]

Besides which, "Recovery CDs" often don't contain an operating system at all. Instead they access a hidden partition on the PC hard drive and use its contents to "reset to factory defaults". This won't work in a VM or for that matter any other PC which lacks that specific hidden partition. Woe betide if you ever try to upgrade the hdd in such a PC.

A P2V stands a much better chance of working in these scenarios.

[maja]

Besides which, "Recovery CDs" often don't contain an operating system at all. Instead they access a hidden partition on the PC hard drive and use its contents to "reset to factory defaults".

I guess it wouldn't be viable to "place" that hidden partition (which I do have as it is present in the laptop I bought) inside a virtual machine..

[mpack]

If you image the existing drive the partition will go with it. However bear in mind that, unlike a retail or generic OEM CD, that image may not have drivers for hardware that isn't in that PC.