[fedora-virt] qemu-kvm to guest using physical Windows7 partition (on Fedora16)

[Philip Rhoades]

Ademar,


On 2012-01-10 08:46, Ademar de Souza Reis Jr. wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 06, 2012 at 02:11:44AM +1100, Philip Rhoades wrote:
>> Rich,
>>
>>
>> On 2012-01-05 21:05, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>> >On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 10:27:29AM +0200, Dor Laor wrote:
>> >>On 01/03/2012 06:42 PM, Ian Pilcher wrote:
>> >>>On 01/02/2012 03:38 AM, Emanuel Rietveld wrote:
>> >>>>When you give qemu-kvm a partition to use as disk for a guest,
>> >>it does
>> >>>>exactly that. It uses the partition as a disk for the guest.
>> >>So, the
>> >>>>guest sees a *disk* while in the physical situation it's a
>> >>*partition*.
>> >>>>You may be able to do what you want by attaching a whole disk
>> >>to the
>> >>>>guest, instead of just the partition.
>>
>>
>> Not possible in my situation - I want to be able to dual boot OR run
>> Windows 7 as a guest using the same partition install.
>>
>
> You can use a small image with grub to boot the windows
> partition when running inside qemu. Basically a boot disk
> with grub pointing to your real partition as seen from qemu.
>
> I had my win7 partition booting this way under VirtualBox. It was
> working perfectly (no hardware issues, win7 is smart enough
> regarding auto-detection). *BUT* everytime I switched between the
> VM and the real hardware, I had to reactivate my windows license
> (which is legal, but cumbersome).
>
> I gave up on trying to fix the license reactivation (my win7 is
> for games anyway). But if you manage to mimic your hardware well
> enough inside qemu (lots of variables) or trick windows
> somehow (legal?), it should work. Please report your steps if you
> succeed.


I have been surviving quite happily without Windows for many years now 
but recently I have HAD to use it for only a couple of programs and I 
resent having to reboot for sometimes only 5mins a day - it would be 
excellent if I could get at the Win7 partition via a virtual arrangement 
but still have the dual boot option working OK if I need it . . the 
reactivation nonsense pisses me off . .

Thanks to all who posted! - it was much appreciated.

Regards,

Phil.
-- 
Philip Rhoades

GPO Box 3411
Sydney NSW	2001
Australia
E-mail:  phil at pricom.com.au