virtual box booting from existing XP

[Preston Hagar]

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Noah <noah-list at enabled.com> wrote:
>
> Got some questions about the procedures listed in the booting from
> existing XP partition page.  I am getting an error at Step 2.  clues
> please?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Noah
>

I'm not sure about the method listed, so sorry I can't be of help with
that.  If you want a really easy way to turn an existing Windows XP
install into a VirtualBox guest, however, I would try the following:

On the Windows XP machine:
Go here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx
and download disk2vhd.
Run it and make sure to check the "Fix HAL" box.
It will create a .VHD virtual image where you told it to save it.

Copy it to your Ubuntu machine (USB disk, mount the Windows partition, etc.)
Create a new Guest in VirtualBox and choose existing disk image and
choose your VHD disk image.
Boot it up, install Guest additions, let it reboot a few times and you
should be done.
If it still doesn't work, you may need to do a repair install to the
Windows virtual disk.
To do that, put your Windows XP cd in the machine and have Virtual box
boot to it (within your new virutal machine).  Once it boots, select
repair install and then let it reboot.
You XP guest should work now, although you will need to re-install any
service packs/updates that are not on your Windows XP cd.

Hope this helps.

Preston