Deleting Boot Camp Win XP partition: will I lose the VMWare virtual machine as well?

[pgodon]

Hello all. I've tried finding an answer to my question in the forums, but no luck. So here goes:

I have Windows XP installed on my Mac (Leopard 10.5.7) via Boot Camp. I also run Windows XP via VMWare. I am having trouble booting up into Windows through the Boot Camp partition (i.e., not through Fusion), and would like to delete the Windows partition altogether from my Mac. However, I do want to continue running WinXP through Fusion. If I delete the Windows Boot Camp partition, will I also delete the Fusion virtual machine, which is based on the Boot Cam partition? I don't want to have to reinstall WinXP and all the other Windows software I run.

Many thanks for any advice/help.

Patrick

[WoodyZ]

If you delete the Boot Camp partition from OS X then you will not be able to run the Boot Camp partition Virtual Machine because it is only meta-data pointing to the physical partition. Now if you have a file based Virtual Machine that you created by Importing the Boot Camp partition then that will not be touched by deleting the Boot Camp partition from OS X however you better make sure that you do have a normal file based Virtual Machine before deleting the Boot Camp partition from OS X!

[pgodon]

Thanks for your reply. In order to create a file-based Virtual Machine, can I simply import the Boot Camp partition Virtual Machine via the import feature in Fusion? Once this is done, can I then delete the Boot Camp partition?

[WoodyZ]

> In order to create a file-based Virtual Machine, can I simply import the Boot Camp partition Virtual Machine via the import feature in Fusion?

VMware Fusion (menu bar) > Help > VMware Fusion Help > Creating Virtual Machines > Importing Virtual Machines > Importing the Boot Camp Partition

Once this is done, can I then delete the Boot Camp partition?

Once you've verified the the Imported Boot Camp partition Virtual Machine is working properly, yes you can remove the Physical Boot Camp partition at which point you'll be able to delete the Boot Camp partition entry from the Virtual Machine Library however keep in mind that if you do not rename the Imported Boot Camp partition to something other then Boot Camp partition make sure you're deleting the correct one.

[pgodon]

Thanks very much. I'll follow. Your advice.

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Sent from my mobile

Patrick Godon

450.297.2310

On 23-May-09, at 12:41 PM, WoodyZ <communities-emailer@vmware.com

[Cloudysusan]

Hi, I have a similar question. I would like to delete the physical boot camp partition to redeem the space. How do I make sure I did a file based Virtual Machine so that when I delete the physical partition using boot camp assistant, the Windows XP which i installed on that partition but had been using through VMware is not disturbed.

Thank you very much for advice in advance!