Believe me, if _I_ can do it, it is not _THAT_ complicated... :) The 2 key points are: 1.- Create your profile in windoze (valid for XP, Vista is another ball of wax and 7 is utterly unknown to me) 2.- Create the disk for VBox pointing to the windoze partition *NOT* the entire hard drive (unless you have toes of Titanium). Even though I found links with "most" of the instructions, most everything was scattered all over the place and I didn't save the links. I ran a quick search and found a few: http://dotneverland.blogspot.com/2008/08/running-your-physical-windows-xp.ht ml There are too many variants as to point to a single page. Many will talk about users and permissions that you better don't follow blindly. I had to include the group "disk" to my user so I could access the partition. Ugly, I know, but you hack what you have to hack... ;-) ET PS: Use dogpile.com for searches... Stephen writes: > i would love to see a link to those "fine grained instructions" you > had found. i find this an interesting project. > > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:04 PM, kitepilot@kitepilot.com > wrote: >> Hello PLUG! >> >> Sometime ago I asked how to run a "hard" WinXP partition under VirtualBox. >> Well, it ain't so difficult...   :) >> >> This is what I did: (fine-grain steps are described elsewhere in the WEB) >> >> Before shutting down Windoze, I created a new "profile". >> >> I installed Kubuntu 9.10 in a flash-drive and, of course, installed >> VirtualBox. >> >> Then I booted from the "stick", started VBox, created a hard-drive for the >> physical WinXP partition using commands available in the "User's manual" >> (RTFM?!?!?!) and created a machine for XP attached to that drive. >> >> Finally I booted WinXP in VBox, chose my "virtual" profile, installed >> drivers and guest additions and now the XP machine is just an afterthought >> where I get emails and IMs while working (secretly ;-) in my Linux >> machine...   :) >> >> I can also pull the stick and boot the machine from its normal boot record >> and the only trace left is the profile and the guest additions (which were >> not really needed) >> >> WinXP performance sucks, but I hardly use that machine anyway... >> >> I like it!   8) >> THANKS!!!   :) >> ET >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> > > > > -- > A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from > rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. > > Stephen > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss