virtualbox.org

Hi all, first poster here.

I'm running a dual boot setup with Win7 on one disk and Debian on the other disk. This is my challenge: I wanna be able to access the Windows system through VirtualBox running on the Debian installation.
Here's how far I've gotten:
- Created VM without virtual disk.
- Created .vmdk which redirects to the physical disk (using VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "</path/to/file>.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/sda) and attached it to the VM.
- Used a live Ubuntu .iso to verify that the VM recognizes the disk, this was succesfull.
- Bootable medium wasn't found, turned out the be the EFI setting. The VM was still MBR-oriënted, switching it to EFI fixed that.
- Windows starts, but hangs on the ¨Starting Windows¨ screen. Started in safe mode, got stuck loading Classpnp.sys driver. Removing that file broke the installation to the point that I couldn't boot it if I restarted my physical machine so I put the file back.

The problem seems to be related to SCSI, but mounting the vmdk on a SCSI the VM doesn't start anymore. This is pretty much where my knowledge and experience ends. Does anyone have any tips for me?

Looking forward to your replies,
Jaapyse

Jaapyse wrote:Does anyone have any tips for me?

Due to the nature of your endeavor, your level of expertise (how much of VirtualBox/rawdisk do you have?), and the more than obvious risks of damaging your real hard drive, including to (but not limited) to loss of data, loss of partitions, botched installation, etc., I doubt that you'll find someone to actually take the moral responsibility of guiding you through this. This territory is best explored on one's own.

I've done 2 (maybe up to 4) rawdisk attempts, but they were all on external disks, for things I didn't really care if I lost at that point (now, I do). I did several tests, had to go back and forth, destroy, reformat, reinstall. At the end I got the recipe just right and now it works.

The closest that I got to you was a Win10 installation, on an external USB. Since this installation would be used both as a boot device for my Mac, and as a VM, I decided that it would be best if I first installed it as a VM, and then see if that VM could boot my Mac. So, I started off with a template that was mimicking my Mac (EFI, ICH9) and I installed Win10 there. Great.

The next step was to boot the Mac with that VM. And surprisingly, it just worked! Win10 discovered all sorts of hardware (duh!) and installed the appropriate drivers. The same thing happened when I rebooted Win10 as a VM. A lot of back and forth, but finally, both are happy, each booting with each own set of "hardware". The VM is deactivated, but I don't care, I just need it for the updates (it has internet). I don't know how long it will last like that, but I don't really care. The physical installation is my gaming machine, with no internet access, that's what I care about.