[GRLUG] VirtualBox question (Bill Littlejohn)

[Bill Littlejohn]

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 3:55 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org>wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 03:20:44PM -0500, Lee Forest wrote:
> > pretty sure I seen where you were trying to go with the factory
> > install on VirtualBox deal. The answer seems clear to me, but also
> > seems to sound more complicated then it really needs to be. Basically
> > you make a copy of your hard disk partition and put it on a usb
> > drive....load the Virtual enviroment with a liveCD since you obviously
> > won't have an OS yet. restore the partition from the USB to the
> > virtual machine. If you don't have a boot loader, you can chroot into
> > the enviroment and do a grub install and you should be good to go.
> > This is my measley two cents too late, but I've been playing with
> > virtualbox all night and it all came clear to me this morning :D
>
> I cannot restore the partition to a VM.  The partition contains
> installation files for the operating system and the pre-installed
> software.  I need VirtualBox to install the operating system from the
> restore partition (or USB drive), just like one would with an install
> CD.
>
> Why do I need to load the virtual environment with a live CD?
>
> I believe the restore partition has a bootloader since it's designed to
> be booted (so as to restore the machine to its factory installation).
> --
> john-thomas
> ------
> Pray, v. To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a
> single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
> Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), [The Devil's Dictionary, 1906]
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The partition has it's boot files, but not the bootload, which resides in
the MBR of the drive.
I did basically what John-Thomas Richards is suggesting - I made a dd image
of the partition into a file on a USB drive, then booted the VM with a
livecd ISO and DD'd the file image to the VM drive partition. What's left to
do is copy the bootloader from the MBR of the original drive to the MBR of
the virtual drive. I don't really know (yet) how to chroot to install grub
that way.
Bill
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