I have a dual-boot laptop with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04. I am trying to boot the ubuntu partition from windows using Virtualbox. I have successfully created the .vmdk, and created the virtual machine. However, I can't get it to boot (in Virtualbox). All I get is a black screen with the cursor in the top left. I wonder if I'm specifying the partitions correctly. My Ubuntu install has 3 partitions: \, \boot, \home. No swap partition. These are all in Disk 0, partitions 3,4,5 respectively. The command I used to create the .vmdk is: VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename C:\Users\abalter\.virtualbox\ubuntu.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive0 -partitions 3,4,5 Then I create a virtual machine based on that .vmdk. Why won't it boot?