Virtualizing OSX currently installed As I explained here, I have an old MacBook and I am planning to replace OS X with either Windows 7 or Linux. 

I was wondering if it is at all possible to virtualize the physical Snow Leopard partition. In Windows you can convert a physical machine to a virtual machine using VMWare products. Could I do something like this for my MacBook?

The idea is to wipe everything, install Windows or Linux and have the original OS X partition as a Virtual Machine in case I need something.
According to this source this should work:

Prerequsites:  

– Mac OS X 10.6.8 Server or Mac OS X 10.7 or later as prospective Guest OS 


Create a r/w image of your partition
Open Terminal an enter:

hdiutil imageinfo /path/to/image.dmg  | grep "Format"  


Output should be:

Format: UDRW
Format Description: raw read/write

Create a diskname.vmdk file with an editor:

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=fffffffe
parentCID=ffffffff
isNativeSnapshot="no"
createType="monolithicFlat"

# Extent description
RW SIZE_OF_DMG_IN_SECTORS FLAT "Fully_Qualified_Pathname_of_DMG" 0

# The Disk Data Base 
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
#ddb.geometry.cylinders is not used by Mac OS.
#ddb.geometry.heads is not used by Mac OS.
#ddb.geometry.sectors is not used by Mac OS.
#ddb.longContentID will be generated on the first write to the file.
#ddb.uuid is not used by Mac OS.
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "6"  

customize SIZE_OF_DMG_IN_SECTORS (the size of your disk/512) and Fully_Qualified_Pathname_of_DMG in the above file
Open VMware Workstation and create a new machine and choose the above created vdmk file as hdd.image
There is a legal impediment to run Mac OS X on Non-Apple hardware. VMware Player &amp; VMware Workstation therefore officially don't support the installation of Mac OS X on any hardware - not even on Macs.