Re: [libvirt-users] Dual-boot and also use raw disk in virtual machine
On 06/07/2010 04:22 PM, Richard Walker wrote:
On 7 June 2010 14:59, Justin Clift<justin(a)salasaga.org>
wrote:
> On 06/07/2010 02:39 PM, Richard Walker wrote:
> <snip>
>>
>> And at last . . . success!
>
> Interesting. Hope you've taken a backup (image the hdd or something). :)
Uh, yes, well, maybe I will get around to that.
The next problem to face is activation.
Having activated the native install, now I have three
days to activate in the VM, and that doesn't work.
Too many hardware "changes" I suppose . . .
Btw, the snapshot approach mentioned works. It's very easy.
For a 500GB physical disk, with an OS installed on it:
# qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o
backing_file=/dev/sdb,backing_fmt=host_device
/home/images/sdbimagesnap2.qcow2 500G
That creates the snapshot. Then change a guest XML file to point to the
snapshot. From:
<disk type='block' device='disk'>
<driver name='qemu'/> <-- no "type" here
<source dev='/dev/sdb'/> <-- physical device here
<target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
</disk>
To:
<disk type='block' device='disk'>
<driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'/> <-- qcow2
type here
<source dev='/home/images/sdbimagesnap2.qcow2'/> <--snapshot file
<target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
</disk>
And the guest then uses the snapshot file, making writes only to that
and leaving the physical device alone.
It probably would have been a good way to experiment with your dual boot
solution, without invalidating the license keys when physically booting
Windows. Though, booting windows for real would likely silently corrupt
the vm snapshots. :/
Good luck with your pursuit though. Hope you figure the license
activation thing out. :)
Regards and best wishes,
Justin Clift
--
Salasaga - Open Source eLearning IDE
http://www.salasaga.org