HD Install :: HD Install in Virtual PC 7(Mac)



Hello,

When I try to install to an HD Image of Virtual PC, everything seems to work, but after rebooting, the only thing I see is a black screen saying "Missing operating system" just as if I had turned on a PC without a boot drive.

When booting from the ISO-Image, everything works just fine...
Quote (Damage Inc. @ Jan. 29 2006,08:55)
Hello,

When I try to install to an HD Image of Virtual PC, everything seems to work, but after rebooting, the only thing I see is a black screen saying "Missing operating system" just as if I had turned on a PC without a boot drive.

When booting from the ISO-Image, everything works just fine...

I experienced the same thing - although, are you sure the installation really proceeds fully?

When I do it, DSL does indeed install completely. But then the installer just bails out - either with an error if I try to install a bootloader, or silently if I don't.

I suspect there's something about the VPC virtual hard drive file that's different from a real drive/volume at some low level. That's all I can figure out.

It would be nice to be able to have a HD install - on my iMac G5, DSL runs far faster than any other VPC OS I've ever tried. In fact, I'd say it runs as fast as PPC-native linux on a G3. I imagine from a HD install it'd run even faster.

Matt
One other thing:

You can run DSL from the CD image on your Mac's hard drive, which speeds things up a bit (although it still isn't a customizable, fully usable setup the way a HD install is).

You have to create a new Virtual Machine with a blank drive container - if the VM has an installed OS on it, that will always boot up because unlike with a real CD, you have to manually capture the CD image in VPC, and by then it's too late - the host OS is already booting.

So create a VM with no OS. Start it up, then capture the CD image, then tell VPC to reset the PC. Voila!

Matt

original here.