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I have two operating systems: Windows 7 Professional and Ubuntu 10.10 (dual boot).
I wish to use this existing Windows installation using VirtualBox in Ubuntu as well as use it in the native mode.
Is it possible to do this?
Neel Mehta
Posted 2011-02-23T17:24:18.650
Reputation: 271
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Interesting question, but it's probably not possible due to the fact that Virtualbox exposes a "virtual" hardware platform to Windows, whereas your host machine has a completely different "real" hardware platform. Beside the obvious problems with switching between hardware platforms on Virtualbox, Windows will freak out every time you switch and probably require you reactivate, reinstall drivers and so on and so forth.
Joshua
Posted 2011-02-23T17:24:18.650
Reputation: 4 290
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Yes. It is called raw hard disk access, and it is possible using the vboxmanage command-line tool included in a virtualbox install, see the user manual for at www.virtualbox.org for information on how to do it.
Abbafei
Posted 2011-02-23T17:24:18.650
Reputation: 417
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Yes, it is totally possible, I have done it, but it is a bit trickly. The only think I can not deal with is that windows ask for activation when running from VirtualBox, but don't worry, you have to restart windows as real machine, and when you restart it as Virtual machine, it wait for activation 30 days more. Read the following topic in my blog: http://edisonm.dyndns.org/blog/2011/05/05/real-ubuntu-and-windows-7-with-virtualbox/
Edison Mera
Posted 2011-02-23T17:24:18.650
Reputation: 21
Linked domain doesn't resolve. This is why link-only answers are not okay—linked content can disappear, invalidating the answer. – bwDraco – 2015-09-30T02:02:19.387
My direct answer to your question is posted below, but I have a question for you: What is the desired application / purpose? Perhaps I / we could suggest a workaround or alternative solution that would work just as well :) – Joshua – 2011-02-23T17:37:50.527
Related: http://superuser.com/questions/283049/converting-existing-pc-into-a-vm-with-virtual-box
– Mechanical snail – 2012-10-01T19:53:27.697