Neil Bothwick believes he
was a supercomputer in a former life.
Q Going virtual
I have a WinXP SP3 installation with all the updates on a hard disk from a PC that has broken down. Is it possible somehow to import that installation into a virtual machine on VirtualBox?
Of course, I could reinstall WinXP and SP3 in a virtual machine, but the above solution would benefit from having all updates (and settings) in place.
Jørn Pedersen
A It is possible to boot a virtual machine from a real hard drive. VirtualBox expects to find virtual disks in VMDK or VDI files, so you have to create a special one of these to point to the real hard disk. Assuming the Windows disk is connected as /dev/sdb, run this command: $ VBoxManage createmedium disk --filename /path/to/winxp.vmdk --format=VMDK --variant RawDisk --property RawDrive=/dev/sdb
The --filename option gives the name of the VMDK file to be created – this must be an absolute path. Then add this disk to your list of virtual disks from the Media submenu of the Tools button in the left pane of VirtualBox. Now you can create a WinXP virtual machine in VirtualBox using this ‘virtual disk’. It should work whether the XP disk is internally connected to a SATA port on your computer’s motherboard or put into an enclosure and plugged in externally via USB or eSATA.
You should be able to boot, but there are some potential issues. First, Windows will see that the drive isnetwork card is based on generic kit.
