Xen Virtualization with disk image as guest OS

[dgsmithsgu]

I am running SUSE 10.1 SP1 with the Xen kernel active using 2 SATA drives, sda (320 GB SATA - GRUB / XP) and sdb (500 GB SATA - SUSE). The PC was originally an XP box. It is currently configured for dual boot but I would like to use a VM to utilize the XP disk. When the virtual disk parameters are requested during Create Virtual Machine I entered /dev/sda. That invoked the grub boot loader and an error 21. I then redirected the VM to /dev/sda1. That starts a boot but hangs soon after. I discovered that fstab had an entry that was mounting /dev/sda1 as /windows/C. I remmed that out and rebooted but the results are the same.

My question is this - does the dual boot configuration need to be altered? ie. make the XP disk a standalone boot, without grub/dual boot in the picture?

Maybe I'm opening a proverbial 'can of worms'? Considering the above config, would it be better to simply retain the dual boot? I installed VMWare on another host (test box) and produced a bootable VM from a previously installed windows disk but that was an IDE setup. Is Xen resistant to SATA? I'd prefer to go Xen to take advantage of full virtualization.

Thanks,

Dave

[gogalthorp]

I'm not sure you can just run a XP partition in Xen. Normally you have a virtual partition that is manged by the VM that sits on a normal host os partition.

I use VMWare Server and I have seen write ups on how to use a fixed XP partition but it looked fairly complex. So I just reformatted the XP partition as Linux, mounted it as VM and installed XP in the virtual machine pointing to the VM directory/partition. But that was on a new Machine. If you have a working VM you could save off any files and restore to the VM'ed XP.

[dgsmithsgu]

I was testing VMWare Workstation. Using a VM with the previously installed disk was fairly simple after I created a second hardware profile on the Windows disk and pointed the VM to /dev/hdb.

Unfortunately it hasn't been that simple with Xen. The Xen kernel also required a change of video drivers, from the standard driver for my Nvidia 7950 GX2 to the 'nv' driver. That's not a show-stopper but it would be nice to have compatibility with the real deal.

I found an article on OpenSUSE.org titled 'How to Install a VM's OS from Disk Image' but the article is under development.

Lots of Googling - not many answers..... <grin>

Dave

[gogalthorp]

To be honest Xen does not seem to be geared to desktops. It seems more geared to a server environment. You will notice that VMware has several different products geared for different uses. IMHO VMWare Server / Workstation are the best VM's for a desktop.

[dgsmithsgu]

I couldn't find a way to force VMware to use full virtualization (VT technology). My CPU supports it and Xen acknowledges it but not VMware. Is this possible or is VMware restricted to partial virtualization with no direct hardware access?

[gogalthorp]

Are you using the newest version?

I'd check over on the VMware user forums

[dgsmithsgu]

I got the product from VMware.com last week so I believed it was the latest but who knows. I'll check the forums. Thanks.