[sclug] vmware - can it use existing installation?

[John Stumbles]

Steve Davies wrote:
> If you have big expensive VMWare Infrastructure with VMotion, then yes 
> it's got utilities for moving an existing environment into a virtual 
> one. But not if you've got basic VMWare, quite apart from anything else 
> you need to get the drivers for the virtual hardware loaded. 

Presumably the same drivers would need to be installed on a virtual XP 
installed directly into the virtual machine, anyway?

> Incidentally, what you want to do is install XP into the VM, then take a 
> snapshot and copy the .vmx file. That way, the next time you need a 
> Windows VM you've got one ready installed.

OK, my problem is that I've got XP preinstalled onto this machine with 
only a restore disk. When I boot that in vmware I get 2 options - to 
start the existing installation or go into recovery mode/repair the 
installation (something to that effect). Unfortunately the menu offering 
theseoptions doesn't respond to my keyboard or mouse so I can't select 
the recover option, and the 'boot existing' option just hangs there :-(

I don't know if it should be possible to reinstall XP from the recovery 
disk into the virtual machine. The other thing I'm thinking of trying is 
booting knoppix in the VM and seeing if I can dd the windoze partition 
into the vm's virtual disk system. Is this likely to be a complete waste 
of time?


-- 
John Stumbles