vmware and proprietary back-up disk

[gwpritch]

I have decided to give vmware a try for the first time, and installed it successfully under debian.
My new Toshiba laptop, of course, comes supplied with a proprietary software backup disk and not a full copy of WinXP. Can this be used to set up a virtual machine or no?
Thanks.

[StarKnight83]

probably not; most of those disks installers check the hw they are running on
only thought would be to get the virtualization to have the same hw specs as the host machine

[gwpritch]

Arn't the hardware specs the same anyway based on the fact you're running it on the same machine?

[ph34r]

Nope. Those propriatary disks are often like ghost images - it doesn't do a real install. Dell OEM disks are real install discs, they read the license key from the BIOS though. If you install one on a non-Dell, you have to enter a key. With the HP disk, I'd imagine it is closer to a ghost type image than an install disk - of course, you could always try....

[saikee]

I could be wrong but I would expect that if I get a Windows version of the VMware it should go straight into my XP. Therefore I should be able to install Debian because I would have the Debian installation discs. The Debian will end up just a large file inside XP.

Not done it with Debian before but it is alright with Mepis and Suse but my XP is a full version.

[gwpritch]

On a different tangent then...if I ever had to do a reinstall, does there have to be something left of the old install or can you reinstall to a pristine reformatted disk?

[gwpritch]

It just seems to me that by running debian from within XP I would be giving up many of the advantages of running linux especially with respect to security. Or am I wrong in that?
Besides having linux be dependent on windows seems somehow...WRONG! :eek: