Failed attempt to virtually install Win7 inside Kubuntu 10.04 @ my Asus Eee PC 1001HA.

[Mark]

On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 12:18 PM, Bas Roufs <basroufs at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Mark and Everybody else
>
> Thanks for your elaborate comment. One question remains - see below.
>
> 2010/11/9 Mark <mhullrich at gmail.com>
>>
>> You might be able to fudge this by installing any version of Windows
>> into your VB VM, then overwrite the VB drive with an image of your
>> Win7 installation.
>
> It's understandable to me that a virtual version of e.g. WinXP could
> be upgraded somehow to Win7. However, a question remains: what do you
> mean with "image of your Win7 installation"? A "copy" of the existing
> OS configuration at the Win7 partion to an .iso file to be burned to a
> CD, with a view to upgrading a virtual version of some previous
> Windows edition? If so, how could I create such an .iso file?
>
You're mixing grapes and bananas here.

An .iso file is an ISO9660 image of a CD (or DVD) that can be burned
directly onto a CD.  Many of these are bootable or runnable (like
copies of your favorite application installation CD/DVD) and that's
NOT what you will get here.

An image of your partition is any kind of binary copy of the disk,
e.g., one created by dd or any other partition copying device.  You
could even do it with tar, although that is a little harder.  You can
burn this onto a CD or DVD if it's small enough, but it won't do
anything because it's not intended to - it's just a copy of
someone/something else's data.

The idea is to take a snapshot of your laptop drive's Windows 7
partition, store it somewhere else, then create a VM with some version
of Windows and overwrite the VM disk with your stored copy of the Win
7 partition.  That's the theory.

I've just started using VirtualBox on Maverick and it runs just fine
for what I need.  I am reasonably certain you can create more than one
virtual hard disk with it for a single machine.  So let's assume you
have VM-W, which is your non-Win7 Windows VM, and another VM, let's
call it VM-X, that boots pretty much any OS (preferably Linux).  You
add a vhdd to VM-X that is exactly the same size and configuration as
your VM-X's boot vhdd.  Outside the VM environment you rename VM-X's
secondary drive to something else, then slip in a copy of VM-W's boot
drive as the secondary drive.  Then you should be able to boot VM-X
with two drives, one of which is actually a copy of your VM-W boot
vhdd.  Inside VM-X, overwrite the data on vhdd #2 with your saved copy
of the Win 7 physical hdd image, make sure that the file system checks
out and it all looks kosher.  Then, outside the VMs, copy VM-X's newly
overwritten vhdd #2 back to VM-W's boot vhdd and run VM-W and see what
happens.  (Make sure you keep a backup unspoiled copy of VM-W's
original boot vhdd for good measure.)

With real hard drives this is not so difficult to do.

You'd want to try this without actually changing your working Win 7
configuration, say with a VM or two running under your Win 7 just to
see if you can do it at all.

I would suggest that you make a backup of your Win 7 disk in any case,
just to make sure you can restore it in case anything happens to it.

If you decide to try this, let us know what happens.  Just make sure
you don't lose your working Win 7 until you KNOW you have a working
Win 7 VM.

Or you can ignore all this tomfoolery and just go with a safer option.

Mark