Hi all,

I have a Windows installation that I'd like to convert to a VirtualBox 
VM so I can run it under Linux. This is possible under certain 
circumstances, as described here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows

I have tested the process by taking a dd image of the 80 GB drive and 
successfully got it to boot within VirtualBox. However, the Windows 
installation is only 12 GB or so and the 80 GB disk space hit is too 
much of a problem for me. I'd like to instead have a 20 GB VM.

So I revisited the original Windows hard drive and re-sized the first 
partition to 20 GB. Unfortunately, as the above web page mentions:

3. Either pull the drive from the windows machine or copy the data with 
a low level image tool (like dd) to a USB drive or other removable 
media. If making an image, DO NOT image just the partition, this will 
not work!

And just to be certain, I tried imaging just the partition and verified 
the documentation is in fact correct. :)

Since AFAIK once you start with a VM of a particular size, you cannot 
actually "shrink" it, I'd like to figure out if there is some way I can 
simulate this single 20 GB partition into being a hard drive with a 
valid partition table indicating the size of the drive is 20 GB. Is this 
possible, and how?

I'm eager to learn more about how disk partitions work in the process, 
so point me at some documentation if you have a high confidence that it 
will allow me to resolve this problem.

Thanks,

Scott

-- 
Scott Garman
sgarman at zenlinux dot com
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