Yes, you can clone drive or partition and access it successfully that way from VBox. That is pretty routine.
I would not expect it to boot Windows from the image though. Most likely, you are heading for fresh windows install or Windows recovery in VBox. If you really want to preserve your Win installations, my advice would be to create proper recovery media from windows and verify that they work as intended in VBox before you start reconfiguring your machine. If that does not work, prepare for fresh Win install in VBox. Just make sure that you do not ever start the recovered VBox instance together with another running installation of the same Windows instance - you could end up having them both disabled by their anti-piracy features. I would recommend destroying the original installation after you have working VBox instance and all the data + backup. VBox instances are easy to backup - I export them as appliance (which is self-contained image) from time to time - y ou get one compact file which is easy to archive and restore. That is the best beauty of VMs - they are independent of slowly dying HW. Tomas On Thu, 2016-05-12 at 22:52 -0700, Nat Taylor wrote: > To rip the win 7 image: > http://superuser.com/questions/614400/how-can-i-clone-a-hard-drive-directly- > to-a-vdi-image > On May 12, 2016 9:46 PM, "Denis Heidtmann" <denis.heidtm...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 7:37 PM, Denis Heidtmann < > > denis.heidtm...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > > > On the same morning that the 76 was shipped back, I went to EcoBinary at > > > Keith's suggestion. Great idea. I now have a new-looking Lenovo L420 > > > ($180). > > > > > > I want some advice on setting it up. It has a 320G HD; 4G ram. I have > > > a > > > 128G SSD. I want to switch from current Windows 7 Pro to Ubuntu, but > > > put > > > the W7 into VBox, along with my present Windows 2000. I will run a > > couple > > > of older programs in the W2K and a couple of newer programs in the W7. > > > Most work will be done in Ubuntu; the performance of the virtual > > > machines > > > is not very important. How might I best configure this? > > > > > > The max. ram this will take is 8G. The seller said he thought currently > > > the 4G is in one stick. Assuming that is correct, is it ok to add a 2nd > > 4G > > > stick, or should they both be of the same vintage? > > > > > > I was able to find a Hardware Maintenance Manual, so with some study I > > may > > > be able to answer the last of these questions myself. > > > > > > Thanks for the advice.. > > > > > > -Denis > > > > > > > On-line research leads me to believe that the L420 can have a 2nd HD by > > replacing the optical drive with a HD in a carrier. It is unclear to me > > how this drive will be seen by the system: can it be configured to mount > > automatically? Can VB use it for its big files? If yes, then it just a > > matter of learning how to set it up. If not, then perhaps I should opt > > for > > a single larger SSD drive. > > > > -Denis > > _______________________________________________ > > PLUG mailing list > > PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org > > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > > > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
