Can I convert Bootcamp disk to parallers or similar?

[Gloor]

Hi,

I was wondering if I can use my current bootcamp disk and convert it to one of the software like parallers or vmware etc.?
The reason is that I don't want to reinstall everything again from the scratch so I thought that there might be a way to use my current bootcamp disk and just turn it into those new things so I don't have to reboot the computer every single time I need to go to windows (which is not often)

So, was I correct thinking that this could be done or am I out of luck?

Thanks in advance.

 

[spinnerlys]

If you mean to use your Boot Camp partition with a virtual machine software like VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop, then yes you can do it.

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/use_winxp_boot_camp_partition_in_parallels.html
http://blip.tv/file/2719793

 

[maflynn]

Yes of course, both parallels and VMware will let you run your bootcamp partition within their application. You may need to re-activate windows but once done, you should be all set.

Vmware gives you one extra option (not sure if parallels does) and that's to import the bootcamp install into a vmware vmdk file, its called a P2V (Physical to Virtual) if you opted to stop running it from bootcamp. The advantage there is that you do get a performance penalty from running a bootcamp partition from a virtual environment as opposed to running windows inside their own proprietary file format (for vmware its the vmdk files).

 

[Gloor]

Cool, thanks for help.
Actually tried it after you said it and now running parallels fine.

I just hope it will use my Windows disk instead of my Mac disk as I don't want my mac disk messed up with windows files.

I hope that is on default as I can't find that option yet