[NTLUG:Discuss] VM Ware Questions

[Ed Coates]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004, Robert Pearson wrote:

> Thanks to---
>
> Bryan Smith
> Ed Coates
> Chris Cox
>
> for the great answers. All help is appreciated.

Not a problem.  Glad that I was able to help out.

>
> The problem I'm trying to sort out is this---
> I have an existing Windows 2000 PC. It looks like my options are---
> Option-01:
> (1) Leave the Windows installation untouched
> (2) Add VMware for Windows
> (3) Add the Linux of my choice
> This would be running Linux under Windows. Not the preferred way.
>

Yes, this would work providing you have available resources for it.  I'd 
recommend at least 6GB of harddrive space free for it and about 256MB just 
form this vmware session if you can spare it.  I have this setup on my 
laptop.  I've got WinXP Pro loaded and I've running Gentoo in a vmware 
session.

  > Could I ?--- > Option-02: > (1) Leave the Windows 2000 installation as is?
> (2) Add the Linux of my choice in a dual boot configuration with Linux
> as the primary OS
> (3) Install VMware for Linux
> (4) Run the existing Windows 2000 installation under Linux VMware?
> (5) Is there conversion required on existing installations?
> (5) Would this be running Windows under Linux which is the preferred way?
>

To my knowledge, you cannot use an existing OS installation.  You have to 
start up vmware and install it through vmware.

> Option-03:
> (1) Back up the Windows 2000 installation
> (2) Do a Linux Install (wipe the disk)
> (3) Install VMware for Linux
> (4) Restore Windows under VMware
>

This might work, but I've never tried it before.  Might depend on how you 
backed it up, and what you backed up.

> This looks pretty ugly to me because of the applications and the
> customization I have done to Windows 2000. I have had this
> installation a long time.
> Of course, that might be a good reason to blow it away and start over.
> Good training for the hard disk crash scenario. It might get the
> "little grey cells" working.
>
> The Information (Data) is not a problem. It is all stored externally
> on FireWire or USB connected drives. These drives are all formatted
> with NTFS.
>
> If I select Option-03 I would have questions about Windows backup and
> restore under VMware. Anyone done this?
> The last time I tried to create Image files and restore them, in an
> all Windows environment, I got clobbered by the software I was trying
> to use. I got clobbered even worse when I tried to clone my Desktop
> hard drive to my new laptop hard drive. It was a long night.

That I can't help too much with.  I've only used arkeia (www.arkeia.com) 
to backup up linux/windows to a DLT4000 tape drive.

>
> Thanks,
>
> Robert

Ed