You will have a question like can i boot my Windows XP or Vista inside Ubuntu of any Linux when they all reside in the same hard disk. The answer is here. The first step for that is you should create a virtual image of your hard drive.

Step 1: Creating Virtual hard drive.

$sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ./WinXP.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda -relative -register

You will get a “RAW host disk access VMDK file ./WinXP.vmdk created successfully.”

Step 2: Adding the Virtual disk file to the Virtual Box.

Open VirtualBox and choose the menu File->Virtual Disk Manager and in the window that opens click on the Add option and choose the recently created vmdk file (WinXp.vmdk)

Step 3: Creating a New Virtual Machine

Click on the New option and in the Create New Virtual Machine wizard, click Next

Enter the OS Name as WinXP and OS Type as Windows XP, and Click Next

Select the Memory based on the availabilty. In my case i have 2 gb Ram and so i selest 330 mb. And Click Next

Here comes to select the Virtual Hard drive file. Click on Existing option

Select the recently created vmdk file. (WinXP.vmdk)

Click Next and then Finish option.

Step 4: Editting the Settings of the Virtual Machine

Select the recently created virtual machine (WinXp) and Click on the Settings page. And enable Audio, Serial Ports, USB ports, CD/DVD drive as host cd/dvd drive, etc

Goto Shared Folders option and select a shared folder created some where previously (here i have selected /tmp/VirtualBox/SharedXP, which i created previously)

Now select you Start option, and for your surprice you will see your grub menu…

Note: Here in grub, the first option is the ubuntu which iam already in, its not adviced to select it again, select the Virtual OS type you have choosed already.

Rosario Applications, Ubuntu, Virtualisation Ubuntu, VirtualBox