Using partimage and virtualbox

I have a dual boot computer (HP) that has one of those Recovery Partitions
on logical drive D, running WinXP and openSuse 10.3. I read several posts
on the Internet that claim that if one uses partimage to make images of the
C drive, then those images can be installed in a virtual machine under
virtualbox.

I've used the RescueCD bootable disk with partimage on it to make the images
on to multiple DVDs. However no matter what options I use I cannot get
partimage to write to any disk after the first. The program wants me to
change the directory because it is full.

sda2 is my WinXP partition. I made a directory for the DVDrom and mounted
it as /dev/sr0 which is the correct device. I noticed that partimage does
not like plain old DVD +R disks and insists on DVD +RW, and further
requires them to be formatted (even though they are preformatted) and
having the udf file system designation and label with the mkudffs command.

My question is -- should I be breaking the WinXP partition up into DVD sized
(about 4000 MB) chunks and mounting my opensuse /home partition and saving
them there, and then burning the separate chunks to DVDs?

It seems that virtualboxOSE will only install an OS from either a DVD, CD or
floppy unless I am doing something wrong. What compresion should I use
partimage (if any) to burn to the DVDs so that virtualbox will recognize
them?

Has anyone tried this technique?

I made the prerequisite DVD backup disks for the Recovery partition as my
first step after buying my computer a few years ago. Is it possible to use
these (made with the HP/Compaq applet) DVDs to install WinXP under
virtualbox? I would prefer to capture my present WinXP installation
because it runs with everything I want it to, the very few times I need to
use it (mainly to simulate a proceedure when I am walking a customer though
it, because they don't always convey what they are seeing or should be
seeing).

Is there a better way to accomplish what I want? Or is this another one of
those things doomed from the beginning?

--
Later,
Darrell
.

Relevant Pages

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