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I have a computer with Windows XP. I have an external hard drive with Mint Linux Julia. I would like to know how and if I can somehow boot my Linux virtually over my XP without logging off and rebooting? Sort of like a VirtualBox, only in windows with an existing linux?
You can boot a boot manager .iso and have that boot the usb drive into the VM.
This might work for you --> Plop - Boot Manager - Free Boot Manager, builtin usb driver, native usb, boot different operating systems, cdrom, usb, freeware, option rom bios
The biggest problem with this is that the Linux system on your external HD is configured to use the physical devices (and associated drivers) for the system it was installed on. To run as a virtual system, it needs to be configured for the virtualized hardware. This is possible with some virtual machine managers, but it will alter the configuration of the external HD so that it will no longer be independently bootable.
So there is no way of having my Linux work as both a stand-alone system and a virtual system? That's a bite. Do you know if they are working on some way to get around that?
Well, if all devices of a specific category were to use the same kernel and low-level API's, then it would not be quite such a pain. Some of that has been done, such as the video VESA drivers. Unfortunately, that doesn't provide all the high-performance capabilities that native drivers can. Example, using VESA, I can get 1600x1200 resolution on my HD screens, but full-screen full-motion video sucks. With the native nVidia drivers, I get dual display HD (1920x1200) resolution with full-motion video and a different movie on each screen. So, it is a lowest-common-denominator issue more than anything else.
So, the current solution is to import your Linux system image into a VM, which is doable, and run that virtual image on the host OS.
I think that what you are looking for is kind of the "holy grail" of virtual systems development.