running windows partition in ubuntu

[Liam Proven]

On 16 September 2013 12:13, Paul Cartwright <pbcartwright at gmail.com> wrote:
> wow, I might look at that myself.. I always wanted to be able to boot my
> windows-side part of my dual-boot, in a VM.. Not sure about how M$ will
> see it, as a different hardware setup and claim it is an illegal copy..
> Mine is Windows 7, not XP, not sure if that matters either.

It is slightly safer if the install is on a different physical disk.

If it's another partition on the same hardware drive, then both OSes
need to be able to write to the hard disk at once. This is incredibly
dangerous - be very very careful.

E.g. if you were running XP under Ubuntu and installed an XP update
that needed to update the bootloader, it would try to rewrite the boot
sector of the drive that is currently in use by Ubuntu...

It might work, but be sure you have good backups, and if possible,
don't do XP updates while it's running in the VM!

(It goes without saying, do not mount any Windows drive from Ubuntu
*while Windows is running* or you *will* corrupt the drive(s). Ditto
if you have installed software in XP to read Ubuntu's filesystems.)

-- 
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