Hello,

I currently run Win XP inside VirtualBox on Debian. When Win has a problem it's very easy to go with the last snapshot and start fresh.

I am going to build a faster computer and am considering running Win and Linux on Xen. My concern is that that would give Win full access to the hard drive. If it had a problem, it could wipe Linux and Win out. Is that possible?

Thanks in advance,
Steve

I am not sure of your question.

Windows on a virtual machine would only have the file based access that you gave it. You should not allow such a thing as full access to an entire boot drive.

First thing first, I'm not sure that it is a really good idea to install Windows on Xen.

When you're using xen, no full HW access is granted to a virtual machine.

The are two kinds of virtualization's CPU properties:
1st VT-X (Intel), AMD-V (AMD)
it is recommended for easy and fast CPU virtualization.

2nd VT-D, AMD-Vi
guest systems can get direct IO access

If your hardware supports VT-D or AMD-Vi, it doesn't mean that each gues OS has full IO/HW access. You have to configure what hardware is directly accessible from a guest.

---------- Post added 01-09-12 at 09:56 PM ----------

See

http://news.cnet.com/Xen-passes-Wind...l?tag=nefd.top

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization