Another weird and hopefully unique question

[tlcmd]

When y'all get sick and tired of helping me to solve my weird problems,please tell me to "shut up." And this has got to be a really weird and unique one. It isn't listed in any of the searches I ran.
Current set up:
2.66 MHz Pentium Dual Core chip
2 Gigs of RAM
Two HDD's, primary is a 320 G; secondary is a 160 G.
I completely wiped the 320 G HDD and installed LMDE (currently updating it, but otherwise no data files yet). It did have Windows XP SP3 on it. But I'm backed up on the 160 G HDD which includes Windows XP SP3.

My Grub menu shows both LMDE and Windows XP so I can dual boot.

Here's the rub: I wish to put Windows XP SP3 into a VirtualBox on the 320 Gig HDD so I can run LMDE and Windows XP concurrently and pull data files from the 160 HDD if needed.

I did cma because my data files, licenses, etc are also backed up on an external 1 terrabyte HDD.

What's the best way to do it?

Must I remove the Windows XP from the 160 HDD?

If so, my idea is to delete that Windows OS from the 160 HDD and leave the other backup documents and programs there, andinstall Windows XP into the Virtual Box on the 320 HDD, but before I really screw things up, thought I'd ask y'all experts before I sat down to a Gin and tonic with a splash of bitter lemon.

So my other choice is to reformat and wipe the 160 HDD, but I hate to go that route as it seems to introduce even more problems.

As they used to say in the Pogo comic strip, "Hep, Hep!!"

Thanks once more. Y'all have always been great at helping me work out my problems. This final set up will make me about as close a complete LMDE user as I can be. I'm also running it on an old laptop and an 11 year old computer from which I'm sending this query.

tlcmd (aka Dick)

[wayne128]

Here's the rub: I wish to put Windows XP SP3 into a VirtualBox on the 320 Gig HDD so I can run LMDE and Windows XP concurrently and pull data files from the 160 HDD if needed.

I did cma because my data files, licenses, etc are also backed up on an external 1 terrabyte HDD.

What's the best way to do it?

Must I remove the Windows XP from the 160 HDD?

No, keep the winXP intact on 160HDD.
Until you finally run winXP well on virtualbox..and survived a few updating or distro-upgrading

When you install virtualbox, and winXP guest OS into virtualbox, you might need a fair amount of learning to get mouse (haha), usb working and to share files ( yes , sound simple, yet.. will find out when you do it).

Another possible issue, WinXP license, when you install XP into virtualbox, you are required to enter license... and if you have only one license copy, well, you might have some issue if you want to activate... and you might need to call MS to give you a replacement key ( hopefully you do not need to...)

so
Do not touch your 160HDD. until you know well that virtualbox work in your setup.

So my other choice is to reformat and wipe the 160 HDD, but I hate to go that route as it seems to introduce even more problems.

Not a good idea, at least to me..until learning curve is over.

This final set up will make me about as close a complete LMDE user as I can be. I'm also running it on an old laptop and an 11 year old computer from which I'm sending this query.

fantastic... at least it is one year older than my 10-yr old compaq presario. that one cannot run winXP, really it can 'crawl on XP' but LinuxOS simply run.

[tlcmd]

As Red Skelton would have said, "God Bless..." Thank you so much. I'm upt to date on my LMDE updates as of now and hope to do the Virtual Windows thing tomorrow. I do have more than one license for Windows XP, so should be able to solve that potential problem.

Good evening, all.
tlcmd (aka Dick)

[tlcmd]

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;"

More advice, si vous plais.
At least I hope those of you helping to advise me on my LMDE install with Windows XP in a VirtualBox may find this question of interest.

As you know from my past couple days of posts, I have 2 HDD's on my computer. The primary or 320 Gig one has LMDE on it and I've installed Oracle's Debian 7 "Squeezy" VirtualBox package here into LMDE.

My secondary 160 Gig has Windows XP SP3 installed, but last night when I booted it, I found this Windows XP was never registered with Microsoft.

Here are the questions:
1Should I download Windows XP to my VirtualBox and register it as the unregistered copy on my secondary disk or register it under a different key?
2)Either way, should I delete the unregistered Windows XP from my secondary HDD or just remove it from my Grub Menu page?
3) Since I foresee only a very limited usage of the VirtualBox Windows ie: 3 programs, "JRivers Media Jukebox," Imgburn, and a Movie Indexing File Program "MovieOrganizer", how many files and programs can i safely remove from the VirtualBox Windows to make it more efficient? I don't plan to use it for word processing, gaming, etc. Only fo twr the three programs mentioned above. I do plan to put Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials in the VirtualBox Windows OS.

Thanks again.
tlcmd (aka Dick)