Can I use a virtual machine hard disk as a real hard disk, or vice versa?

[onlineapps]

Hi,
Like many of you, I only use Windows occasionally. However, I still keep a partition for it, and I don't want to delete it. Can I make a virtual machine, like VMWare or VirtualBox, do a virtual machine with Windows as the guest OS, and make the hard disk the Windows partition? Or can we reverse it and make Windows (the real one, not the virtual one) use a virtual hard disk? Thanks!

[Sequent]

Re: Can I use a virtual machine hard disk as a real hard disk, or vice versa?

Probably. But why? You're giving yourself a lot of extra work for no real benefit. If you mount the Windoze partition as a sub directory in your home directory, then create a virtual disk on it using qemu or whatever then install Windoze onto it, voila! If you do it in a more conventional manner you will probably save on disk space.

[onlineapps]

Re: Can I use a virtual machine hard disk as a real hard disk, or vice versa?

I can't. I installed XP with an OEM disk from Dell that came with my Dimension 4700. I can't use a OEM disk with QEMU, can I?

[penguin.ch]

Re: Can I use a virtual machine hard disk as a real hard disk, or vice versa?

make the hard disk the Windows partition

http://www.jasonparekh.com/2006/vmwa...ition-booting/