On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 11:51:31PM -0400, Carl Fink wrote: > I apologize if this has already been discussed to death. I did do multiple > searches on phrases like "existing partition" but didn't find what I'm > hoping exists. > > The box I'm typing on, like most cheap PCs, came with Windows Home > preinstalled, but no installation disks, just "restore" disks to reproduce > the exact original disk image. When I installed Debian, I shrank the > original Windows partition and never booted it again. > > I need to use Windows software occasionally for work, so I'd like to set up > qemu, but all instructions I can find for it require the installation CD, > which I don't have. Is there any reason I can't just define /dev/hda (real) > as hda (for qemu)? If not, it's only 15 gig--what if I just dd a copy of > it? i've played around with this a bit, but had no real success. The problem is that usually windows will not boot on the "new hardware" of qemu. There are a couple of work-arounds. One I've tried, and failed with, is to make a full system backup using windows tools, including the registry state. You then do a basic installation (this of course requires a cd) to your qemu image and then restore the system from the backup which you've placed somewhere where qemu can get at it. As I said, this failed for me, after multiple tries. The other option is to prepare windows for new hardware. There are a couple ways to do this using various versions of windows. The process is that essentially, you have to get windows into a state where it will boot from and recognise new hardware, as if you were changing the motherboard. THere are many google hits on this. The one I find intriguing, but haven't tried, is to do the following within windows: remove any specialised disk drivers and replace them with the windows default drivers for ide disks. remove any specialised pci bridge drivers and replace them with the window default drivers. remove the vga driver. reboot in the new system and it should come up and you can then install proper drivers. I guess windows has some "generic" ide, pci and vga drivers that will allow you to boot from most hardware. This method seems to make sense to me BUT it has the problem of changing your windows install into a state where it may not boot AT ALL. So definitely dd it first. hth A
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