[sclug] vmware - can it use existing installation?

[John Stumbles]

I've just got a new box with XP Ho' installed on it. I want to run 
linux[1] on the box, but for various reasons I'd like to be able to run 
a 'real' windoze on it at the same time. AIUI vmware seems to be the 
business but it (vmware workstation, at least) seems to want you to 
install a fresh copy of windows into its virtual machine. Am I missing 
something? Can't I just have it boot up the already-installed XP 
installation? Googling suggests there'd be an issue with the virtual 
machine 'looking' different (to XP) from the 'real' machine, but can't 
the virtual machine be made to look like the real one (close enough for 
jazz, anyway)?

I guess you'd also have problems running more than one instance.

Alternatively is there a simple way to clone and copy the 'real' XP inst 
into the virtual machine?

Any good resources on this that anyone's come across?


[1] after 24 hours I managed to get Gentoo running, multibooting with 
windows via the NT boot loader, and kde base installed running in 640*480.

About 1/2hour later I had kubuntu also installed (on another partition), 
  but with multibooting all trashed up :-(

-- 
John Stumbles