Hi all,

I would like to ask about an emulator which is called "QEMU"

I have a machine which contains in its hard drive 2 OS.

1- Ubuntu 11.10
2- Windows 7

The question is, how to use this emulator as a virtual machine to load the windows from the Linux environment?

But, I don't want to setup or install a new windows.

What I need is to boot my windows7 from the Linux machine using QEMO.

I used this command:


$sudo qemu -hda /dev/sda

but when i choose the windows7 to boot, i got the blue screen!

I need your support.

'qemu' is a virtual machine emulator. It means that you can install an OS in qemu (primarly to check a few things or to do some things that you do not want to do on a production machine). In short you cannot boot a windows partition using qemu.
What boots mulitple machines (OSs) is the bootloader. Linux comes with lilo and grub. My guess is you are using grub if you have installed Ubuntu.

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Thanks honeybadger, I am new to Linux but I think I am already using grub.

Second, I am not with you in you opinion and if so, how to use QEMU to boot an installed version via it??

What I mean is that, they use QEMU first to install os and then, use it to boot the installed version.

The only difference in my case that, I do have a physical partition that contains an installed version.

That's all.

It is possible to use a physical drive or partition within some virtual machines. Qemu can do it. The problem is not with qemu but the windows. It will require you to correct the hal and to most likely re-activate it. It may not be possible to run some OEM windows under qemu as you won't be able to activate it.
Another issue is that it seems like you are trying to mount or use both OS's hard drive. It is almost impossible to mount the hosts drive and use it under qemu.

Why do you want to do this anyway? Please don't use terms like urgent.

Thanks for your reply.

I need to do this because I want to use QEMU as a VM and run another OS.

What I really want is to run a guest os which is Windows under a host os which is Linux.

But I don't want to install a new image or to make a virtual one as I have a physical one already.

About the Urgent term, I am sorry but I need to have a solution very urgently.

That's all.

I think you'd be better off either using a P2V application to change it from a physical installation to a virtual format or use some tool like clonezilla or dd to raw file and use it in qemu. Good P2V apps fix the hal but not sure if there are any for qemu. Might be. Any sort of other use would require some hal being changed or fixed. Again you would have to contact microsoft to activate it as the amount of hardware would be changed too much.

Ok this is my idea. A script that parses every post title and replaces "urgent" with "pink bunnies".

Woooooooow, what a great idea, But I think you should KEEP IT FOR YOURSELF ONLY

Thanks for your care, I tried to think in something like that.
I will try to do it.

OK, hope you get it working.

Two issues you have is the hal problem and the other is trying to mount the hosts drive in qemu. It will corrupt your data if you do it.

Hey Jefro, thanks for clearin this out. I did not know that qemu could boot an installed partition. I have suddenly found a new respect for the qemu guys. BTW does qemu has this abilities or could we use something like Virtual Box doing this too.

Thanks jefro, but i didn't get it.

Can you suggest something direct for me to do?

First is any VM that can use a partition. Some of them can but almost all state some warning. There are a few web pages on making your own .vmx file and making a phony vmdk I think to run vmware. Sure virtualbox has a hack to that too.


Qemu tends not to be one of the choices when you use a P2V application. Microsoft offers a free tool that can change an install to at least their virtual machine. That might be imported but we are back to the very basic nature of qemu.
VMware has a tool and there are plenty of other tools out there that can convert a physical machine to some form of virtual machine. I know of none but maybe someone else knows of some app to do that for qemu.

If it were me and we assumed a few things. I might be tempted to try a few ways. One is to use windows backup for sure to make a copy saved off to some remote media. A second copy of that might be used to convert or use as qemu. I have also used tools like ghost and dd and clonezilla and such to copy off drive to later load on a virtual machine.

If you insist then it might be possible to boot to a partition but it is more trouble than it would be worth in this case.

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