Re: [Xen-users] boot MS Windows installed natively in its own partition

["Nick Couchman" <Nick.Couchman@xxxxxxxxx>]

>>> On 2010/04/20 at 11:31, Aggelos <marmango@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
> I am new to xen and maybe this question has been asked and been answered
> before, but searching with google I didn't find any adequate info:
> 
> I have installed (on gentoo linux)
> 
> app-emulation/xen
> app-emulation/xen-tools
> sys-kernel/xen-sources (kernel)
> 
> on a laptop with a turion cpu (supports svm), and which has MS Windows
> installed as dual boot in its own partition (/dev/sda1).
> Is it possible to boot that Windows installation using xen?

It is *possible* but not necessarily easy.  First of all, the hardware layer 
that a Xen HVM domU presents is different than your physical hardware layer.  
The main chipset, along with disk controllers, network controllers, display, 
etc., is different from your physical hardware.  This means that 1) there is a 
process you have to go through to convert the Windows installation so that it 
is capable of booting correctly on Xen, and 2) it may or may not boot natively 
(outside of Xen) after you do this conversion.  The primary challenge for 
converting the Windows installation is that you need to add IDE chipset support 
at boot time.  There are a couple of scripts and instructions out there (one of 
them is called MergeIDE, I think) that tell you how to modify the registry such 
that the IDE drivers will load at boot time.  After you get the storage taken 
care of, you will have another half dozen or so drivers that need to be 
installed (most of them for the Xen platform are already included with Windows) 
so that all of the devices will work correctly.

-Nick



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