Can I covert an Xp installation from inside another OS

[qaznqwerty]

I am having a dual boot setup with both having Windows XP. I have the 1st Win XP on C drive and the 2nd Win XP on the E drive. I want to create an virtual image of the physical 2nd Win XP on the E drive.

My questions is :

(1) Can I install and run the Vmware convertor from inside of the 1st windows xp on C drive and use it to create a physical to virtual image of the 2nd Win XP on the E drive and save it on a separate partition lets say D drive. Thus I want to convert the XP install on E drive , while running the VMware converter from within the 1st Win XP installation.(This not being a Live cloning as I have booted into the other OS)

(2) Also while using the virtual Image created with the above method, can I use this Image while running the Vmware player from inside both the Windows xp installations on C drive and E drive. What I mean here is can I run the virtual Image of the E drive using either of the Xp installations on C and E drives.

[continuum]

your procedure will not work.

You could install Converter inside the E:\ - XP and run it from there against itself and store the vmdk in C:\




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VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay

[qaznqwerty]

Ok after I install the converter on the XP on E drive and then perform the conversion and save the image in lets say D drive.

Now can I use this virtual Image, while running the Vmware player from inside both the Windows xpinstallations on C drive or E drive. What I mean here is can I run the

virtual Image of the E drive by booting inside either of the Xp installations on C or E drives.

[continuum]

Yes to all

One thing to keep in mind: never give your virtual XP access to the ohysical disks by assigning a second disk to this VM - type physical disk.

XP can not handle this without messing up the filesystems




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VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay

[qaznqwerty]

I am sorry, I could not understand the second part of your reply. Can you explain it in a little more detail....

Did you mean that I should not access the same virtual image while booting from either of the xp installations. Then in this case can I create a copy of the image to another folder, and then use each of them to be accessed separately by the xp installations in the different drives.

[continuum · Accepted solution]

No - that will not be a problem - you can use the VM you created from both Windows-systems.

It only gets dangerous if you assign a physical disk to this VM

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VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay

[qaznqwerty]

Yes, got it now : cannot assign a physical disk to this virtual machine.

Thanks for all the help.

[CainOTrump]

OK... I use to run widows XP inside VMware inside windows Vista many moons ago. A guy set me up and it worked well, but I don't remember how he set it up. I understand there are different types of VMware, which one do I use? I would like to do this again, but this time I want to run Linux inside windows 10. Mostly because I am tired of windows, have been for some time. I want to learn Linux and get away from Microsoft, but not cold turkey. I do have two hard drives in my lap top, but not sure a duel boot is a good idea; so I thought VMware would be my best option. Which download do I need? Thanx in advance! CainO'