Booting "VM" from partion not Image

clade

clade

clade

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At work if we get a problem we remote connect into the laptop and fix the problem. Obviously this wont work if the problem means they have no internet/windows fails to boot.

I failed on a google search but can you boot windows xp + in a window from a live cd? obviously this would have to boot from a partition rather than an image file that most virtual machines work from.
 
You could use a livecd with virtualbox and boot the partition directly from within the VM (create the file you need with vboxmanage), although if windows isn't booting on its own the VM probably isn't going to help, you could mount the partition from a livecd as well depending on whats wrong.
 
Im having abit of trouble finding out how to mount the partition as bootable inside virtualbox but havent had time to fully research this.

Aslong as I can interact with the partion/windows asif I was sat infront of the machine I should be able to fix the problem and allow windows to boot correctly.

I have a feeling that this is a project that will never be finished due to limitations of hardware requirments, virtual box booting the machine and updating any driver requirments. But if it work would be able to save a lot of hastle talking users though options via the phone and or courier charges.
 
Get them to boot Ubuntu (or any other Linux Live distro) and download teamviewer (A great little remote desktop program that gets through pretty much any firewall as long as there is a internet connection)
Then you can mount the windows c:\ from "Places > Computer > PartitionID"
It would give you file level access to the windows files. Though it wont work if you use anything like safeboot.

Teamviewer is a paid for product in a business environment but well worth it!
 
Mounting an actual partition in VB is an utter ballache. I can't find the link now, but the steps involved were lengthy!

I don't know if VMWare handles it any better.
 
clade said:
Aparently according to this link VMWare is better at handling this.

The link I found makes the process seem easy but have yet to test it.

http://www.sysprobs.com/access-physical-disk-virtualbox-desktop-virtualization-software
Click to expand...

That's the windows way of doing it, the command is slightly different for a linux based machine (VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/where/you/want/file.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdXX where XX is the drive/partition). You literally create the vmdk file, create a new virtual machine with the spec you need and when the wizard asks for you to choose a HD, choose the vmdk and boot from the drive. Pretty painless overall.
 
Ill probally go ahead with a windows version as we dont support linux in our IT department.

I will try and streamline drivers/virtualbox with UBCD4Win distro.
 
SiriusB said:
Mounting an actual partition in VB is an utter ballache. I can't find the link now, but the steps involved were lengthy!
Click to expand...

This is my experience as well. It does work, but it took me the best part of a day and I wouldn't bet on it being reliable.
 
clade said:
This is a good point. Some of our directors have safeboot encyrpted laptops.

This is really going to be an uphill battle me thinks.
Click to expand...

If you talk to your safeboot guys and have a google around I'm sure there is a method of streaming some of the safeboot admin stuff into something like UBCD4WIN and if you have the right details (think there is some kind if admin key they set on the back end) and/or network access to the safeboot master server you should be able to work around this.

There are certainly ways to take a safeboot protected HDD out of one machine, slave it to another and with the right details and safe boot software decrypt it.

I looked into it before but it ended up being too much of a ball ache for the one off issue I was trying to resolve and the team that look after our safeboot weren't overly helpful.
 
I did some quick research last night while waiting for a server restart and found afew things:

1)Safeboot comes with a plugin that you can intergrate into the bartpe version of UBCD4WIN
2)You can generate the offline password file from safeboot admin console so internet connection is not required to the master server (the hole point of this research)

Atmo its kind of annoying as I dont have time to start building any test examples just research the problem. all the articles Ive found are quite old aswell.

on the list of research is now how to intergrate virtualbox into UBCD4WIN and drivers for certain laptops. Also some fine tuneing will have to be done to the ubcd4win network connectivity so that it will require less talk though on the phone.

Perfect option would be for it to bootup request a wep key (also include the tool to show the wep keys stored on the windows dir) once internet connection is confirmed start a reverse vnc connection to a computer using a program i have previously created.

I think that ill recreate a thread with completed research over on ubcd4win/dedicated bartpe forum when I have time and post a link here for anyone intrested as I think its very dependent on bartpe.

Thanks for you help guys made me realise that it was not going to be as simple as I first thought especialy considering I forgot about the safeboot laptops :)
 
have finished off the story on that thread now. Thanks for the reminder I forgot I created it lol
 
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