I am currently downloading OpenSuse DVD to install as I have been getting more and more frustrated with Ubuntu (hated Unity) then switched to Kubuntu 11.10 and crahses occur a dozen times a session, and someone suggested trying Suse. So I am about to. My question is that I have a new laptop with Win7 pre-installed. I rarely use it, and could use the space it takes up. Currently it is dual booted with Kubuntu.
Is it possible to remove Win7 and then reload it as a virtual machine? I do this with XP on my desktop, and thought that would be a solution, but with no disk supplied because of the way MS are doing things It seems that if I remove it, is gone for good, which on the rare occasion I need to use it for such things as updating my Garmin GPS maps (which can not be done on Linux) or doing some excel visual basic work for my workplace so must be done on excel itself, would create a problem.
If anyone knows how I could do it I would love to do this at the same time as I reconfigure my partitions to load OpenSuse.
In general, if you wipe out your real installed copy of Windows 7, it will be gone forever. Before I took such an action with no real copy, I would get a backup program like Norton Ghost (which includes a boot disk to load the restore program) and backup Windows 7 to some external hard drive or some number of DVD’s and confirm the copy is good after the back was done. You could even try to restore the copy in a VM, but such things often fail to work. Or, consider you are going to need to buy at least an upgrade version of Windows for use later, which can be loaded twice to get around the upgrade issue. Using Windows 7 in a VM guest role with openSUSE as the host works well, but that is having a Windows boot DVD to load the OS from. Also, using the 32 bit version of Windows is your best bet, at least if you select the VM called VirtualBox from Oracle, which is what I use. I have been able to load and run 32 bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista & Windows 7 all as guests in VirtualBox (a free application for openSUSE) using openSUSE 11.4 & 12.1 as the Host for these OS’.
> Is it possible to remove Win7 and then reload it as a virtual machine?
> I do this with XP on my desktop, and thought that would be a solution,
> but with no disk supplied because of the way MS are doing things It
> seems that if I remove it, is gone for good, which on the rare occasion
> I need to use it for such things as updating my Garmin GPS maps (which
> can not be done on Linux) or doing some excel visual basic work for my
> workplace so must be done on excel itself, would create a problem.
First, just a note: I can not update my TomTom GPS navigator from a virtual
Windows, it doesn’t work. I must use a real Windows.
Then, AFAIK Windows 7 should work fine as a virtual machine. The problem is
doing it legally, because you, like me, most probably do not have a windows
install disk. I do have a rescue partition, and a rescue DVD that I made
from the partition; and the software there expects to find the laptop
hardware. I don’t think it would work virtualized, it would detect the
different “hardware” and refuse.
Also, running fine doesn’t mean running at speed. The virtual machine will
always be a bit slower than the real machine.
Thus my laptop stays dual boot.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Am 11.12.2011 13:16, schrieb VN900:
> > Is it possible to remove Win7 and then reload it as a virtual machine?
> I do this with XP on my desktop, and thought that would be a solution,
> but with no disk supplied because of the way MS are doing things It
> seems that if I remove it, is gone for good, which on the rare occasion
You can try this https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows
I did it once following this guide and it worked (activating windows
again after that was required of course).
Do not wipe out your original windows installation before you are sure
it really worked.
–
PC: oS 11.4 (dual boot 12.1) 64 bit | Intel Core i7-2600@3.40GHz | KDE
4.6.0 | GeForce GT 420 | 16GB Ram
Eee PC 1201n: oS 11.4 64 bit | Intel Atom 330@1.60GHz | KDE 4.7.3 |
nVidia ION | 3GB Ram
jdmcdaniel3 wrote:
<snip>
>
> In general, if you wipe out your real installed copy of Windows 7, it
> will be gone forever. Before I took such an action with no real copy, I
> would get a backup program like Norton Ghost (which includes a boot disk
> to load the restore program) and backup Windows 7 to some external hard
> drive or some number of DVD’s and confirm the copy is good after the
> back was done. You could even try to restore the copy in a VM, but such
> things often fail to work. Or, consider you are going to need to buy at
> least an upgrade version of Windows for use later, which can be loaded
> twice to get around the upgrade issue. Using Windows 7 in a VM guest
> role with openSUSE as the host works well, but that is having a Windows
> boot DVD to load the OS from. Also, using the 32 bit version of Windows
> is your best bet, at least if you select the VM called VirtualBox from
> Oracle, which is what I use. I have been able to load and run 32 bit
> versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista & Windows 7 all as guests in
> VirtualBox (a free application for openSUSE) using openSUSE 11.4 & 12.1
> as the Host for these OS’.
Cheaper that Norton Ghost and Open Source! is PartImage on SystemRescueCD
Whenever I start messing around with SWMBO’s windoze box I put an image copy
of the windows partition on my home server.
If you haven’t got a copy of this download NOW and burn a copy to a couple
of CDs (yes 2 copies! just in case, 'cos when you need this you REALLY need
it and one copy might have got scratched - yep, I’m old and paranoid).
>
> I am currently downloading OpenSuse DVD to install as I have been
> getting more and more frustrated with Ubuntu (hated Unity) then switched
> to Kubuntu 11.10 and crahses occur a dozen times a session, and someone
> suggested trying Suse. So I am about to. My question is that I have a
> new laptop with Win7 pre-installed. I rarely use it, and could use the
> space it takes up. Currently it is dual booted with Kubuntu.
>
> Is it possible to remove Win7 and then reload it as a virtual machine?
> I do this with XP on my desktop, and thought that would be a solution,
> but with no disk supplied because of the way MS are doing things It
> seems that if I remove it, is gone for good, which on the rare occasion
> I need to use it for such things as updating my Garmin GPS maps (which
> can not be done on Linux) or doing some excel visual basic work for my
> workplace so must be done on excel itself, would create a problem.
>
> If anyone knows how I could do it I would love to do this at the same
> time as I reconfigure my partitions to load OpenSuse.
>
> Thanks
>
>
Ans: Yes
Your problem may be in having a Win7 install disk.
IANAL but I reckon you should be allowed to make a copy of your actual
licence (probably Control Panel, Settings) and get hold of a Win7 install
disk from somewhere (warez cough!). Providing you do the install using your
valid licence you /ought/ to be Ok but this is applying logic/common sense
to the law which doesn’t work in practice ;-/
Yes, it is possible. I have been doing so since 3 days ago Having moved from OpenSUSE 11.2 where I was using Parallels as VM to OpenSUSE 12.1 which is not supported by Parallels, I went with VirtualBox after a bit of research and some great answers from forum members here. I can personally say that it works quite well and the integration is pretty smooth. My host system is 64-bits and I am running Windows 7 64-bits in VirtualBox with a number heavy of applications including Adobe Create Web Suite and Lightroom.
What I did not try much yet are USB devices like the one you suggest. This is one area where Parallels is very strong but I have not seen it on VirtualBox, so your mileage may vary when it comes to H/W support.
I installed from a Windows 7 OEM disk. You can make it easy and simply buy one yourself ($120) or try to copy your existing setup. Perhaps there is enough in the recovery partition but I do not know.
Alan, I will download and give the system rescue disk a try out and thanks for the link. What a lot of people don’t realize is that backup solutions are no good if they don’t work when you need them. If you have never tried your selected backup solution, it may be no good at all. Norton Ghost, for Windows only, has never failed me and further, your solution must include a working boot disk to start the restore process going. Don’t bet the farm on an untested backup solution. Make sure you know if it really works first. That may require that you backup something and then try to restore it and make sure your boot disk works then as well.
Thanks for all the replies. What was academic has suddenly become a real issue. I had Kubuntu and win7 dual booting, but got fed up with the continual crashes of Kubuntu 11.10.
So I thought I would try loading Suse up and give it a go. I reduced the size of the win data partition to put Suse into. — BIG mistake it trashed the win installation. No worries I thought, I will simply use the 4 restore DVD’s I had burned when I got the laptop first, and so off I went. The process seemed to work, it happily worked away and asked for each disk in turn and then informed me it had recreated the image. only problem is – it won’t boot and although I can see a C and D drive with Dolphin they both appear to be empty.
**Hmmm – moral of the story – don’t mess with the data partition! **
So now have to see if I can find out what these recover disks are supposed to do and try to get it back, I guess even though I don’t use it a lot, I should have it for the before mentioned issues.
Once again thanks everyone. I am off to research - recovering WINBLOWS 7 (Blah!) :sarcastic:
On 2011-12-14 14:06, VN900 wrote:
> HMMM – MORAL OF THE STORY – DON’T MESS WITH THE DATA PARTITION!
> So now have to see if I can find out what these recover disks are
> supposed to do and try to get it back, I guess even though I don’t use
> it a lot, I should have it for the before mentioned issues.
In my case, a Compaq, aka HP, the recovery DVD first finds out there is a
recovery partition, and uses it instead to reformat the entire disk as it
was when sold. All new partitions are destroyed.
I did recover Windows fine. I had to do this in order to be able to shrink
the Windows partition to make space for Linux.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Having moved from OpenSUSE 11.2 where I was using Parallels as VM to OpenSUSE 12.1 which is not supported by Parallels, I went with VirtualBox after a bit of research and some great answers from forum members here. I can personally say that it works quite well and the integration is pretty smooth. My host system is 64-bits and I am running Windows 7 64-bits in VirtualBox with a number heavy of applications including Adobe Create Web Suite and Lightroom.