[ale] If you own (almost) ANY HDD, repartition with 4k boundaries

[Phil Turmel]

On 01/06/2013 10:53 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
> Hi Phil,
> 
> Thanks for the note.
> 
> I'm not sure a VM counts.  In that case, you're installing XP on a
> virtual imaginary hdd provided to it by the virtual host system.
> Virtualbox, or whatever, probably reports back to the OS being
> installed that sector numbers and partition boundaries are what they
> traditionally expect.  It then maps that data into it's own big
> binary blob that represents the HDD for the client.  I'm not sure
> that's an acid test, but I'm speculating since I don't know exactly
> how that works.  I wonder, though, if XP would work if you install to
> real bare bones hardware, not a VM, and the HDD is partitioned
> according to the new format.  I think the boot loader is the problem.
> Once the OS is kickstarted and it's just reading and writing files,
> it's probably OK.  Maybe you could use the Vista or Windows 7 boot
> loader, or even Grub to kickstart the OS and then it would work on
> bare bones hardware.

At the boot phase in the VM, WinXP can't distinguish between a
bare-metal setup and a VM.  I'm certain the aligned partition would work
just fine on bare metal.

> Of course, most anyone installing XP at this time could go with 7 and
> be much better off in almost all aspects.

For certain industrial controls configuration tools, the WinXP =>
Vista/7 conversion experience has been brutal.  Many non-Windows
products that use a Windows environment for a configuration tool were
created without any concern for the Windows setup.  Administrative
permissions are almost universally needed (for no good reason) and UAC
screws them up.

In some cases (discontinued products, etc), there's no upgrade path to a
Win7 tool.  I see a long life for WinXP in isolated VMs just to run such
tools.

Phil