AFAIK on Windows the physical disk containing the partition needs to be marked offline in Disk Management, and the disk or a partition given exclusively to VirtualBox running as administrator, otherwise access is limited to read-only
I would suggest checking some other sources as well, just in case this has changed over the years. If you do successfully pass the physical partition into VirtualBox read-write, you might need to set up a virtual disk with grub to boot into your physical Linux partition
Yeah, that’s what another user found too. It doesn’t look like VirtualBox can do it, but this thread suggests that VMWare might be able to. I’m just trying it now :)
For me it was partially Windows 10 placing suggested apps and ads in the UI. The other part was just curiosity. After some distro hopping I landed on Mint, then Fedora and finally Arch where I’ve been for about two or three years.
Back in the days I used to use Windows, I did use Linux as a developer sometimes, yet I was sticking to a daily usage of Windows… Until Windows 10, when Windows started to be aggressive on how it won’t let me control my own machine (e.g. I couldn’t disable updates the way I wanted, I couldn’t run some softwares, I couldn’t this and I couldn’t that). Then I said “enough” and started using Linux on a daily basis, firstly Ubuntu, then I started to experiment on other Linux distros, until I finally landed on Arch Linux, as it’s highly customizable and let me have full control of my own machine, not being stuck to specific DEs (I know that distros like Ubuntu allow the user to uninstall the current DE, or install other simultaneous DEs, but Arch comes without any DE from scratch). I’ve been using Linux on a daily basis for almost a decade now and I don’t miss Windows.
I have an old refurbished Thinkpad that I originally bought as a backup navigation computer for a month-long sailboat voyage. It had Windows originally and was “fine”, by which I mean slow but acceptable for navigation purposes. When I was forced to update to Windows 10, the performance was no longer tolerable, so I hardly used it for about four years. I also had a Windows gaming PC, so no big deal.
About a year ago, I got a shiny new Windows gaming PC. I was trying to decide what to do with my old gaming PC, which had the same problem as my laptop: it could barely crawl under the weight of years of Windows OS “upgrades”. I got it into my head that I should build a media PC with it since Netflix kind of sucks now. That lead me down the self-hosting and Linux rabbit hole.
Before I knew it, I had my old gaming PC running Proxmox and attached to my main television, I bought an old Dell Poweredge server (also running Proxmox), an old Compellant storage shelf with 20 SAS drives, a Tripp-Lite UPS, and a 24-port network switch. I also discovered Docker. So, now I fucking love Linux and I’m a fiend for self-hosting and media streaming. And how do I centrally control all of this infrastructure? That’s right, my old Thinkpad got a new lease on life running Arch and I can run all of my server infrastructure using the terminal, emacs, and web interfaces. Fuck yeah.
And what happened to my beautiful, expensive new Alienware Windows gaming PC? After playing a couple hundred hours of Cyberpunk, it just sits there. Now I’m addicted to Dwarf Fortress on my old Arch Thinkpad and I don’t think about high-spec AAA games much.
I had no idea this would happen when I started this Linux journey. Life is strange.
I run a Hackintosh’s dual booting Mac OS and Windows. So you solution is not insane as some have pointed out.
What I would suggest is maybe running a NAS on your local network to act as your share. Obviously this won’t help if you dont store your working files on your NAS, but its an idea. I know no way to directly share between the two machines as they are technically not on at the same time.
Thanks, but the sharing itself isn’t the issue. I’ve got three other hard drives in this computer, and can access them all through each OS. What I want to be able to do is be using Windows and realise that I want something from a program on the Mint drive, or have Mint running and realise that I need something from a program on Windows, and just be able to get it without having to shut down everything and reboot.
I’ve got programs like Thunderbird where the data has to be exported before it can be imported in the Mint version, and the program has to be running for that to happen. With my memory, I keep forgetting about things like that until I’m in Mint and need the data, but in the time it takes me to reboot, get the data, and get back to Mint, I’ve forgotten why I needed it in the first place >.<
No worries, VMware or some of the other virtualization software’s should work in this case as most other comments pointed out. Probably the most simple and straight to the point.
If you have the urge to tinker, another potential item or route you can look at is a proxmox machine. You can run multiple VMs in tandem at the same time. This would run on a standalone machine.
You would then be able to remote desktop into any virtualized OS on your home network. You can use a software like parsec which I like to access each machine from a clean interface.
I did this back in 2008 using virtual box. Had a dual boot system and got curious as to whether or not I could boot the Linux partition as a VM. I don’t remember it being difficult to do but this was before EFI and secure boot so those may cause trouble. I’m not 100% sure I used virtual box either :/
I remember doing it with a file that came with one of the multi ISO tools, LiLo perhaps? It was just named VirtualiseThisKey.exe and would open the key as if it was booting on a PC. I deleted it back last year though as my copy had been corrupted, and I hadn’t used it for a long time so didn’t bother replacing it.
I succeeded in doing this once long ago. Then while in the Linux vm I wiped the VM’s partition table, which wiped the physical disk partition table, including windows. Do not recommend.
Er, yes. It’s one of the main features being introduced in 3.0. I don’t know why you would just assume they’re not adding it without looking it up. It made quite a bit of noise when it started being in the works.
Oh! Well that’s awesome then, thanks for the correction. I did look it up but ended up on some “top feature” article which barely mentioned any features beyond layer multi select. I should have looked further.
I was shocked how little I need Windows. I went dual boot install but just… never booted Windows again. My games work. I’m happy. Why should I boot Windows?
And each time you want to use Windows, you have to go through hoops and updates of Windows and then updates of the applications (and possibly games) to just do the work you intended to boot into. I had Windows for a few years in dual mode too and know the problems of a Windows system that is not used often.
If you really need some applications, then consider using a VM (however doesn’t solve the updates and usability issue of Windows). Off course some games won’t work, but if its not a game then maybe you can finally get rid of your dual boot.
VMs are what really did it for me. I was working at a health care job doing IT. Whenever someone wanted a new server I’d have to buy the hardware install the hardware load Windows server on it load the middleware on it, connect it to the SAN, add it to the complicated backup schedule. Literally anything anyone wanted took me a month.
I threw an ESXi box in connected it to the SAN once, worked out a mirroring backup solution. Now I could slice up one decent size box into dozens of smaller boxes. My real limitation was Windows licensing. Server and CALs and middleware gets pricey quickly. But I can install as much community-based open source as I want.
I started running Linux of the desktop to keep up with technology. Before long the vast majority of my servers were Linux.
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