Anyone know of a utility or method to... (multi-boot and filesystem related)

Discussion in 'Application Software' started by jayaretoo, Oct 16, 2011.

  1. jayaretoo

    jayaretoo MDL Novice

    Sep 10, 2009
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    Has anyone heard of a way to create a virtual filesystem in a regular file in NTFS and boot from it?

    Scenario: I want to try Windows 8 pre-release and really don't want to play the re-partitioning game, especially since I might just delete the thing after I'm done playing with it.

    Basically, I'd like to be able to mount <VirtualWinDOwS8filesystem.img> as Windows 8's drive C:, and (preferably) still be able to see the actual real partition as Windows 8's drive D: -- I want to create a boot menu entry either in GRUB or the Windows 7 boot loader menu to boot from the file. Then, when I'm done, I just remove the entry and delete the file.

    Painless.

    Is it possible? If so, has anyone created a free / and hopefully open-source way of doing this?

    I could just use a virtual box I know, however that isn't the same as running native. I want to see how things run (speed and driver-wise) as they actually would, not on generic virtual devices.
     
  2. windsman

    windsman MDL Expert

    Jan 11, 2010
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  3. IronMaiden

    IronMaiden MDL Member

    Oct 27, 2009
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    I think you might actually be better off with partitioning...which really isn't that big of a deal unless you try to do it with nothing but Disk Management...try EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition, it's great :)