How to install Windows 7 inside Oracle Virtualbox [closed]

I am running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (32-bit) on a 64-bit machine. I want to install Windows 7 64-bit inside virtualbox. I have enabled virtualization in the bios. I have installed oracle virtualbox with the latest .deb from oracle. I am able to create .vdi (virtual disk images) and .vhd (virtual hard drives) on my system. I have root access. I also have the Windows 7 recovery disk. I do not have a Windows 7 disk image of a snapshot of windows 7 on the same PC. I do have a windows recovery partition on disk, but it seems this one is not accessible by virtualbox.

How do I install Windows 7 64-bit inside Ubuntu?

Solution 1:

The only safe way to install Windows 7 in Virtual Box is to use an installation CD (or a CD image).

Depending on your licence it may allow you to use the Windows licence from your PC for the virtual machine, provided you do not have installed Windows outside the virtual machine. If you have such a license you will be able to install Windows from any other installation CD. You will not need the physical data from your recovery partition.

As in theory it is possible to bind a hard drive as raw disk to Virtual Box (see the Virtual Box manual on how to do this) this may not be a good idea when it comes to data security. In addition to that it is very doubtful that if you booted your recovery partition or recovery CD it will install anywhere else but the machine it was built for.