Virtualization software that can use existing vista installation

[Ralf Folkerts]

Mel Flynn wrote:
> Hi,
>
> is there any good working virtualization software on FreeBSD that can work 
> with an existing Vista installation? I have a slice on my disk with ~20G of 
> vista, for taxes and some games. As far as skimming through virtualbox user 
> manual told me, it will need to install vista itself on the FreeBSD box.
>
> The data for partition 1 is:
> sysid 7 (0x07),(NTFS, OS/2 HPFS, QNX-2 (16 bit) or Advanced UNIX)
>     start 63, size 50473061 (24645 Meg), flag 0
>         beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
>         end: cyl 1023/ head 8/ sector 44
>
> Also, it would probably take me a few days to locate the original vista DVD 
> that came with the laptop, so I'd really like to avoid that. ;)
> Of course, I'm also open to tricks that allow me to use that installation even 
> if it means going through the normal motions.
>   

Hi,

well, not a real solution; ~1 Year ago I used the VMWare Converter to 
convert my physical Windows XP Installation into a VMDK, copy that to my 
Linux Machine, mount that disk into VirtualBox, run a 
Repair-Installation - and was done. The Image uses to run fine from 
within VirtualBox since then.

As there is a Virtual Box Port in the works now for FreeBSD - though 
currently a bit limited re. Network, it might come somewhat close to 
what you want. Please note, that I did not yet check that mentioned 
Image with FBSD-VBox but only use a smaller "test" Image.
 
For the Converter see http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/

As my Experience is a bit outdated and was with an older Version of both 
(VBox, Converter) there is a chance that it might no longer work at 
all... But it might be worth a try.

Cheers,
_ralf_