Reply at the top - Bob.... I'm puzzled by what you're trying to accomplish.   
      
   Running in an OS in a virtual session does not mean running it off a RAM   
   drive, which I suspect is what you're thinking of...   
      
   You seem to be describing installing Win XP to an SD card in the netbook's SD   
   card slot and booting to it and running it. No virtual machine involved or   
   needed.   
      
   In order to make use of a virtual machine you need lots of storage and RAM -   
   since you are storing and running two operating systems: the 'host' OS which   
   you boot to and the 'guest' OS which is running in the virtual system. On your   
   netbook as you describe it, you have neither storage nor RAM to spare.   
      
   In comparison, my mainly-used system right now is a Macbook Air - it's got a   
   256GB SSD and 8 GB of memory; it boots to Mac OS X 10.8. But I'm teaching a   
   class right now where I need a Win 7 system, so I've got Windows 7 installed   
   in a virtual machine... with the 8 GB memory, I give the Win7 virtual session   
   4 GB when it's running, and still have 4 GB for OS X - when I had systems with   
   4 GB memory total, I had to skimp on memory when running virtual sessions.   
   Win7+Office2013 (and not much else) takes 12GB of storage for the virtual hard   
   drive.   
      
   Running XP would require less memory and storage - but still relatively   
   significant amounts when you add them what's needed by your host OS...   
      
   I can think of one scenario where you might want to do this - let me imagine a   
   netbook with 1 GB of soldered-in, unexpandable RAM (which is pretty standard   
   with many netbook models) and (say) a 16 GB SD card (you might be able to use   
   a smaller capacity card)... and let's also imagine that you can't install/boot   
   XP from the SD card but can install/boot a small Linux distribution. (I don't   
   know if that's the case or not).   
      
   In that case, you might want to install Puppy Linux and then install XP as a   
   virtual machine using the free VirtualBox software. Note that your restore CD   
   probably would NOT be usable for this as the hardware virtualized by   
   VirtualBox is different from the actual hardware.   
      
   Giving the virtualized XP session 512MB of RAM would work...   
      
   But it would only be worth doing if you're unable to install/boot XP directly   
   to the SD card - in which case you might be able to use the restore CD.   
      
   What make/model netbook is it? I've found SSDs for the Dell Mini 9 to be   
   relatively affordable - about $25/30 for 16 GB SSDs, for instance.   
      
   On 2013-07-25 9:41 AM, BOB KLAHN -> ALL wrote:   
      
    BK>   Ok, here's the problem. Or, rather question.   
      
    BK>   I have a netbook, bought at a garage sale very cheap. The hard   
    BK>   drive was missing, and new hard drives for that are very   
    BK>   expensive. Solid state drive.   
      
    BK>   I have known about virtual computing for a long time, but never   
    BK>   got into it. What I am thinking of is, using an SD card as my   
    BK>   hard drive, setting it up to boot to XP, then running it as a   
    BK>   virtual machine.   
      
    BK>   What I don't know is, does the virtual machine run completely in   
    BK>   ram, or run off the HD? If it runs out of ram that should   
    BK>   drastically reduce the write cycles to the SD card, thus   
    BK>   prolonging it's life. OTOH, even writing to the SD card may be   
    BK>   worth it, I can buy a dozen or two SD cards for the price of one   
    BK>   SSD.   
      
    BK>   The problem with that is, SD cards are not as fast as SSDs, or   
    BK>   even ordinary hard drives. So, if running in ram it should be   
    BK>   very fast. Is it?   
      
    BK>   This will be used for a very limited selection of tasks, web   
    BK>   browsing when out of the house, limited word processing, maybe   
    BK>   video or audio. I suspect I could save files to a cloud server,   
    BK>   but I don't want to get into Google Chrome OS. I want my   
    BK>   programs on the local system because the Web actually is rather   
    BK>   slow by comparison, esp when you are sharing a bookstore or   
    BK>   restaurant connection.   
      
    BK>   So, what is other's experience with this, and does anyone have   
    BK>   any recommendations on how to do this as easily as possible.   
      
    BK>   Oh and I have booted it to Puppy Linux, which does work, but I   
    BK>   also have the restore CD for this and would like, at least, to   
    BK>   have a working system for this.   
      
      
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