Bug#610697: grub-common: start windows XP from raw.qemu into EXT3 partition

[Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko]

On 01/21/2011 02:52 PM, yellow wrote:
> Package: grub-common
> Version: 1.98+20100804-11
> Severity: wishlist
>
> Hello
>
> I would like to use windows XP without emulation (so no wine, nor qmeu, or vmware or others) 
> so directly to start with 100% power microsoft windows XP at normal speed and performances
>
> - well you would tell me : dual boot man !
>
> - well ok, but I do not want to install a NTFS and keep the RAW image of my qmeu and use it from teh Boot Grub 
> that launches it like dual booting but will write all those stuff into RAW image located into my ext3
>
>   
While it is possible to make bootmgr/ntldr/any other program using BIOS
calls think that a given file is a real disk by intercepting int 13h, it
won't get you far. The problem is that the moment windows/any other
modern OS switches to its own device drivers it will fail to find its
boot device and throw error/bluescreen/reboot. GNU/Linux is able to do
such tricks only because by the means of initramfs one has complete
control over from where to mount the root. No such luxury in m$ OSes.
While this is feasible by writing special disk driver which will add
this "virtual disk", I doubt this is the right place to find the people
with both right knowledge and motivation
> please could you code that.,.. it is not that hard in principle, with using all today's tools.
>
>   

> Thank you in advnance !
>
> Kind regards
> Y.
>
> -- System Information:
> Debian Release: squeeze/sid
>   APT prefers testing
>   APT policy: (500, 'testing')
> Architecture: i386 (i686)
>
> Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
> Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
> Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
>
> Versions of packages grub-common depends on:
> ii  base-files              5.10             Debian base system miscellaneous f
> ii  dpkg                    1.15.8.7         Debian package management system
> ii  gettext-base            0.18.1.1-3       GNU Internationalization utilities
> ii  install-info            4.13a.dfsg.1-6   Manage installed documentation in 
> ii  libc6                   2.11.2-7         Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
> ii  libdevmapper1.02.1      2:1.02.48-4      The Linux Kernel Device Mapper use
> ii  libfreetype6            2.4.2-2.1        FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
> ii  zlib1g                  1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime
>
> Versions of packages grub-common recommends:
> ii  os-prober                     1.42       utility to detect other OSes on a 
>
> Versions of packages grub-common suggests:
> pn  grub-emu                      <none>     (no description available)
> pn  multiboot-doc                 <none>     (no description available)
> pn  xorriso                       <none>     (no description available)
>
> -- no debconf information
>
>
>
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>
>   


-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko


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