Is it possible to run multiple OS's from their physical locations?

[anga1010]

On the same PC,
1. Install Windows 7 x64 on disk 1
2. Remove disk 1. insert disk 2
3. Install Windows XP on disk 2
4. Remove disk 2. insert disk 3
5. Install Ubuntu on disk 3
and so on.....
Now I have different OS's on different disks and all installed on the same PC.

Now insert disk 1 with Windows 7 x64 and install VMWare Workstation (7 or 😎
Shutdown PC and install disks 2, 3, 4, .....

Can I run the different OS's from their physical locations from within Workstation without giving up the option to remove all the other HDDs and boot from the single OS?

Q1: Is this possible? If so, how can I make it work?

Q2: If the above is not possible, can I make the above work by installing the OS's in a multi-boot setup?

[continuum]

Q1: yep - thats possible but IMHO it does not make a lot of sense.
In this case using physical drives has no advantage at all - you can as well use virtual disks for the XP and the Ubuntu.
That would make the whole setup much safer wthout performance loss

Q2: yep - thats also possible and now you have the advantage that XP and Ubuntu could also be used natively.

Before you start .... keep i mind that using a VM with physical disks does not perform so much  better than a VM with virtual disks to justify the additional pain and danger

[UmeshAhuja]

Hi,

Q1: Is this possible? If so, how can I make it work?

     Yes its possible , Mapping a RAW disk to that particular VM through Wrokstation.

Q2: If the above is not possible, can I make the above work by installing the OS's in a multi-boot setup?

      Yes you can setup multi-boot system, But if you are installing  Workstation in WIn 7 and wanna run from XP then might be not possible as  the Workstation drivers and setup files are in Win 7 and cannnot be run  from XP which is on different HDD.(But same is possible if you are having both the OS on same harddisk.)

[continuum]

> But if you are installing  Workstation in WIn 7 and wanna run from XP  then might be not possible as  the Workstation drivers and setup files  are in Win 7 and cannnot be run  from XP which is on different HDD.(But  same is possible if you are having both the OS on same harddisk.)

@ OP
this stement is complete nonsense - ignore it.

With Win7 as the host you should put XP and Ubuntu on separate drives