Is it possible to vm boot native Win7 partition from Linux host?

[mbeierl]

I used to be able to boot my installed version of Windows XP (back in the VMware WS 5.x days) by using a physical disk.  Now when I try something similar on Windows 7, I keep getting a stop screen and then a recovery attempt from MS Windows that can find nothing wrong and doesn't actually resolve anything.

Is this even possible anymore?

[continuum · Accepted solution]

Yes - that is still possible

I assume you are aware of the activation problems you get when not using a Volume license ...

So when that is out of the way you would assign the physical disk as LSI-SAS to the VM
Then while still booted inside native Windows you enable the lsi-sas service in registry so that it starts at boot-time.

With a little luck that is all you need - lets see ...

[mbeierl]

It sounds right, but I can't seem to figure out which LSI driver to download from their website.  Is there any way of knowing what vmware uses as an LSI SAS layer?

Even worse... I just don't know anything about windows 7!  How does one even install one of these drivers without the hardware being "detected" first?

Update: Found the LSI_SAS in the registry, and it IS already set to Start type of (0) which means boot, so I guess that's a no-go.  I just wish that Windows would be a little less "user friendly" and actually tell me what is failing to load.

[mbeierl]

I was slightly mislead by this article: http://sanbarrow.com/p2v2008r2.html

I used the regedit as was described, but did it from inside the vm while running vmware.  That's where I saw LSI_SAS was enabled.  When I booted back into the live Windows 7, that's where I saw it was NOT enabled for boot time loading.  Changed it there (LIKE YOU SAID!) and yes, it DOES work!

Thanks again!

(And, of course, this being an OEM license... it's not activated!)

[mbeierl]

So, booted into native Win7 OS:  Run regedit, go to HKLM\ControlSet001\services\LSI_SAS and set the start type to REG_DWORD 0.

Next, boot back into your Ubuntu/Linux partition and start up vmware.  Create a new virtual machine.  Choose Custom.

Hardware compatibility: 6.5-7.x

Install operating system from: I will install the operating system later

Guest Operating System: Windows 7 (x64 as needed)

Virtual Machine Name: whatever you like

Processors: I kept mine at 1, even though my native CPU is dual processor, dual core.

Memory: at least 1gb

Network Connection: NAT works well, or you can bridge if wanted.

SCSI controller: LSI Logic SAS

Disk: Use a physical disk

Device: /dev/sda (change as needed)

     You can choose to use entire disk, or just individual partitions.  If you do select individual partitions, you must include the one which has your GRUB root on it or the vm won't be able to boot.

And that's about it.

After I was done creating the machine and then booting it, I managed to find the Windows 7 equivalent to fdisk /mbr.  This caused the VMware disk image which represents the real boot sector to get updated with the Windows boot loader again, leaving the original disk intact.  So, when I boot the physical disk from the real BIOS, I get the choice of OS.

When I boot the physical disk with VMware - it does not load grub, but boots right into Windows.  This is absolutely fantastic as it avoids those messy times when you accidentally double boot the same OS.  It's not pretty.  Don't do it.