I Need A New Computer

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:43 am

I got the Gateway about an hour ago. I'm in the process of unboxing it and setting it up. I'll let you know the good and the bad.

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:40 am

The good news is the i3-530 is VT-x capable and supports setting execute bit disable. That means you're set for any of the hardware asisted hypervisors.

With 6GB in the system, you'll likely only see the OS report 5.5 or 5.75. This is because PCIx uses a window. It's DDR3 ram, probably 8500U, so you'll likely want to pull the two 1GB modules and replace them with 2GB modules. Make sure the timings match, or put the modules with the lowest timing values in the first two slots.

I have 3 Lenovo M58s set up that way. I use iSCSI to connect to a 14TB SAN. All three are running Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2, and the VMs reside on the SAN. I only use the internal SATA II disks as boot device.

If your background is Unix, you might try Xen. It's free. Hyper-V is free as well. You still need licenses for your guest OS. If you're running windows guests, then go to sysinternals and get bginfo. It'll save you a lot of trouble figuring out which guest is which.

J

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:13 am

JohnFul,

I probably won't be upgrading anything any time soon. I'm on a very tight budget. I got by on my XP for 4 years with 2GB. 5.5 is probably enough for now. I will be getting the upgrade to Pro (XP compatibility) in a month or so.

I'll report on any glitches questions etc. as they come up.

My first task will be partitioning my 1 T HD. I have Paragon backup. Which is supposed to be able to do that. I haven't tried yet. Any suggestions if that doesn't work? I'm thinking 400 GB for 7 and then an XP of around 300 and the balance for Unbuntu (sp?), Dos, etc.

Probably VMware too.

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 5:43 am

Just use the XP virtual machine in Windows 7. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtua ... nload.aspx It runs in a VHD. I'd actually chreate a VHD for Ubuntu as well, and then just set a boot from VHD option to boot to Ubuntu.

CaptainBeowulf · Post by **CaptainBeowulf** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 5:59 am

I've been running Windows 7 64 bit Professional on an Athlon 64 dual-core box with 2 gigs of RAM for a couple of months now and it runs fine for all "regular user" applications (office programs, web surfing). Most of the parts in the machine date from 2005-2006, with a new Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB as the boot drive. I wouldn't worry about upgrading from 6GB of RAM for a couple of years, unless you're doing video rendering or something.

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 6:25 am

My Lenovo T60 Laptop has 4GB of RAM and is running Windows Server 2008 R2. The Hard Drive is an SSD. That made more difference than anything else.

As I type, I'm loading another Ubuntu VM, and I don't notice any performance difference.

Server 2008 and Windows 7 are the same core.

J

BenTC · Post by **BenTC** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:42 pm

As JohnFul said, you don't need to repartition to run XP & Ubuntu. The virtual hard drive of the Guest is just a file on the Host.

Regarding RAM... that might then be 2GB for Win7, 2GB for XP and 2GB for Ubuntu - adjustable anytime a virtual machine is not running.

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:11 pm

If you'd like, I can export a VHD with Ubuntu 9.10, zip it, and send it to you. It's a differencing VHD, and is about 1.5GB zipped. You can download the XP VHD from Microsoft for free, just use the link in my previous post.

J

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:26 pm

I need to digest all this a little better. Can you suggest a link or two?

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:38 pm

You could start here.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

You already have Windows 7. The easiest path would be to use what you have.

J

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:50 am

JohnFul wrote:You could start here.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

You already have Windows 7. The easiest path would be to use what you have.

J

At this time an upgrade to W 7 Pro is financially out of the question. And I'm advised that it may not solve my problem in any case.

I'm inclined to go with the Sun VM because the Doc is easy enough to understand. Any thoughts?

In addition - Windows will not partition the system drive. Is there a Partition Magic for W 7?

From the review by KD "KD" at

Paragon Partition Manager 10 Personal Edition

*** "Partition Wizard Home Edition": Free. Works with Windows partitions. Does not work with Linux partitions.

*** "GNU Parted": Free. Works with Linux partitions. Does not work with Windows partitions.

*** Having both "Partition Wizard Home Edition" and "GNU Parted" will likely do everything that you need.

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:29 pm

The formerly Sun now Oracle Virtual box is similar in many respects to Xen. You could certainly use that. There is no need to partition the disk. Once you install the hypervisor, your guest OS virtual machine's disk is simply a file.

J

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:31 pm

JohnFul wrote:The formerly Sun now Oracle Virtual box is similar in many respects to Xen. You could certainly use that. There is no need to partition the disk. Once you install the hypervisor, your guest OS virtual machine's disk is simply a file.

J

I think I need to partition to do a full restore of my XP backup.

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:52 pm

If you're partitioning, then what you're really talking about is dual booting. You can boot into one or the other. If you run a hypervisor, then you're taling about virtualizing and the guest OS disk is simply a file on the virtualization platform.

It sounds like you want to keep your current XP setup, and run that as a guest OS in Sun Virtual Box. You can do that.

Go to www.sysinternals.com and get disk2vhd. Create a VHD of you current system. Load virtual box. Create a Windows 7 guest. Copy the VHD onto the drive in the Windows 7 VM. Configure Windows 7 to boot from VHD.

BenTC · Post by **BenTC** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 2:25 pm

JohnFul wrote:Go to www.sysinternals.com and get disk2vhd. Create a VHD of you current system. Load virtual box. Create a Windows 7 guest. Copy the VHD onto the drive in the Windows 7 VM. Configure Windows 7 to boot from VHD.

disk2vhd would be the tool for a working system. You could plug the old hard drive into the new machine with a usb drive dock I believe VMWare can run the result.

If you have a broken system, then TestDiskfrom the Ultimate Boot CD might help.

For a non-working system, if your backup is a bootable CD, then after you create the virtual machine, the virtual CDROM can mount your backup CD and boot from it. The thing about virtualisation is that it is just-like-real-hardware(tm) but inside a window.