Re: VirtualBox WinXP host, Linux Partition guest?

[Wackojacko <wackojacko32@ntlworld.com>]

Steve C. Lamb wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 12:08:30PM -0400, Mark Neidorff wrote:
> > Hi.  I'm not quite sure what you want to do, but it sounds to me like you
> > want a windows host to boot a linux guest.
>
>     Correct.
>
> > So, you need to download the correct windows binary, install it and then
> > create the linux guest in the windows host. 
>
>     This is where I am now.  A Windows host is booting a Linux guest from a
> hard drive image.
>
> > Did that answer your question?
>
>     Nope.  What I want to do is have my Windows host boot a Linux guest from a
> *real* hard drive partition, not an image.  The VirtualBox help gives a method
> to do the reverse, IE, a Linux host booting a real Windows partition.
> However, the command to do so references the partition from the /dev tree;
> something that obviously will not work for a Windows host.  I'm looking for
> the Windows version of that command.

The command is the same except the device section is as follows (from 
user manual section 9.9)

*On a Windows host, instead of the above device specification, use e.g.
\\.\PhysicalDrive0.*

May need full path to VBoxManage to work.

The only problem I had was getting an mbr to boot the linux partition. 
Tried the fakembr package but as I have grub in the MBR of the physical 
disk it wouldn't work for me.  I eventually used a grub floppy image 
mounted at boot time pointing to the menu.lst on the linux partition 
which works!

HTH

Wackojacko