I currently have my laptop setup as follows:
hda1 - NTFS (windows XP pro)
hda2 - EXT3 (Slackware 9.1 w/ 2.4.24 kernel)
hda3 - swap
Bootloader - Lilo installed on MBR

I want to be able to run vmware on XP or Linux and boot the other OS from within the virtual machine.

For both OSs, I setup vmware to boot the whole disk (hda) instead of individual partitions (this brings up lilo within the VM).

Currently I am able to boot Linux as a guest OS from the XP Host without a hitch, but when I try to boot XP as a gust OS from the Linux Host it begins to boot (i.e. the windows logo appears), then promptly bluescreens and the VM restarts.

I noticed a few interesting things:
1.) If I select the individual NTFS partition where my XP build is located as the virtual disk (i.e. I choose only that partition and not the whole disk or other partitions) I get a strange error when the VM starts:
"9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 "

2.) I've changed my lilo configuration since I setup my XP host vmware, and when I start my virtual machine on my XP host I get my old lilo menu.

Now I know this is possible b/c I've done something similar to this - I've booted a native windows 2000 build within a Linux VM from a physical HDD that I had in my hot-swap bay.

I'm guessing that it's a hardware autodetect issue with XP but I'm not sure. Please help!!