On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Scott Garman <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug >
Not tested but google seems to say this should work. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24864/virtualbox-from-an-existing-partition Use vmware converter to convert the existing install into a vmware instance, load said instance into Virtual Box (it's supported apparently) ... profit??? Drew- _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
