Problem:
I have a toshiba laptop and it came with a "recovery" XP disk. I've since got Mint 6 running on the laptop but would quite like to get XP running in a virtual environment under Mint 6 using VMware.

VMware installed fine once patched for the 2.6.27 kernel but as soon as I create a new virtual machine and attempt to use my Toshiba XP recovery disk I get a rude splash message inside the virtual machine saying something along the lines : "This is not a Toshiba PC".

My only guess is that the crappy Toshiba XP disk does some kind of check and doesn't like the fact that it's running in a virtual machine even though it IS on a Toshiba notebook.

Any clues anyone (other than *wasting* money on a XP windows disk?) ??

Are you able to even start in safe mode (F8)? If so, what about step-by-step confirmation (so you can see where the check is done)?

I guess the possibilities are:

1. The check is done in the MBR. You could get around this by installing grub in the MBR on the virtual Windows machine.

2. The check is done by an independent dll or exe. If you boot your virtual machine from eg a live linux boot disk, you could have a look around the windows and windows system directories for anything that might be toshiba specific. Also have a look in the boot.ini, autoexec.bat, config.ini, and WINNT/win.ini files (these may be hidden).

3. The check is done by NTDETECT.COM. There is a debug version of this available.

4. The check is wired into one of the main windows files (I think this is less likely, because service packs would cause problems). If it was, it would be harder to fix. Unfortunately even if you borrowed a WinXP CD, your legitimate Toshiba OEM serial number probably wouldn't be accepted.

You could also go the dual boot route; not quite what you want perhaps, but at least it would have a pretty good chance of working.

as far as i know (i have Toshiba Notebook, too), recovery disk has a disk image to write over the computer when you need to "recover" the system. of course this will be erase everything on the disk. that writing system is not XP at all. there's information on the net about creating XP install disk from "recovery" disk or installation files on the disk (i386 folder). i never tried one myself but they suppose to work. i don't even know if you can do all of this on Linux (maybe with wine).

ps: only Notebook i saw that came with XP install CD was a HP. it was my brother's and it got burnt out by over heating.

Toshiba used to ship their own tools - was the reason I refuse now to buy their gear. With mine, to upgrade from Win2k to XP you needed to buy a (legit) XP upgrade disk from M$soft, then connect to a Toshiba site to enable their tools to do the upgrade.
Like hell. I tossed Linux on it until it finally died. Goodbye Toshiba.

funnily my Toshiba is still alive after 8 years and shows no sign of any problems. Japs sure know how to make quality hardware unless it's Sony (PS3 had less problems than XBox 360, and Xbox have waay too much hardware problems).

My laptop is also a Toshiba - it was a high spec at a low price, and it does what I want.

I use Ubuntu with Virtual Box to run XP programs that are essential to my work. I assumed the recovery disc would be a problem, so used the XP disc that came with my Dell PC and it runs fine.

The only problem I have (nothing to do with VBox) is that the Ubuntu/Toshiba combination is incapable of remembering what the screen size is from one boot to the next, and I nearly always have to reset the display after booting. I don't get that problem on my PC with the same setup.

Ended up using a mate's Dell OEM install disk for the virtual machine. The virtual machine booted and started loading with the Dell OEM Windows XP disk in the drive. No rude complaints that it wasn't a Dell machine (unlike my Toshiba "recovery" disk wrongly telling me that I wasn't using a Toshiba PC when I tried booting with the Toshiba XP disk) and it merrily installed Windows XP. I had to do the online activation thing and I admit I didn't bother trying my own valid XP sticker on the bottom of my Toshiba laptop for fear that it would be incompatible with the Dell XP disk. So I put in a Dell sticker key and it works just fine. Even on a Toshiba laptop. IT *REALLY* irks me that I tried and tried to use my genuine Toshiba XP disk on my Toshiba laptop but that it just wouldn't work in a virtual environment. Up yours, Toshiba!!