Comments for Unable to activate Windows after virtualization at http://www.help4it.co.uk , comment 1 to 2 out of 2 comments http://www.help4it.co.uk Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:48:38 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.help4it.co.uk/home-mainmenu-1/inside-track/unable-to-activate-windows-after-virtualization.html#comment-22 Most Dell desktops have a hidden utility partition on the hard disk that can cause problems after virtualisation, which I suspect may be your problem here. The Windows installer is looking at the first partition on the disk and getting confused. The easiest option if possible may be to run the virtualisation process again, but this time manually specify the partitions to convert and ignore the small utility partition. Otherwise you may need to use a third party boot disk to removed the utility partition and make sure the main Windows one is bootable. - Tom Finnis Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:44:51 +0100 http://www.help4it.co.uk/home-mainmenu-1/inside-track/unable-to-activate-windows-after-virtualization.html#comment-21 I just migrate our physical Windows XP machine (Dell) into a VirtualBox machine to realize I have run into this very problem. I have another OEM XP Pro cd but can't seem to repair it. When I choose to install Windows XP from the CD and hit F8 to accept the terms the installation doesn't seem to recognizse the current installation. It says "Partition1 [Unknown]" and claims no harddrive space is in use. I only have the option to completly re-install Windows from here. Any clues? - Patrik Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:08:32 +0100