Patent ID: 8473731

Claim:
A method comprising, in a computing system executing a first operating system and having a mass storage device: rewriting the boot sector of said first operating system on said mass storage device to execute a hypervisor operating system in a boot process; copying a file comprising the kernel of said hypervisor operating system to a first sub-area on said mass storage device; copying a file comprising software components of said hypervisor operating system to a second sub-area on said mass storage device; performing a first boot process to execute said hypervisor as an operating system; executing said first operating system as a background process of said hypervisor operating system; retrieving from said first operating system information indicative of absolute mapping of sectors used by said first operating system on said mass storage device; allocating for said sectors used by said first operating system respective storage areas on a third sub-area of said mass storage device to be used as a first virtual hard disk by said first operating system; performing a second boot process to run said hypervisor as a host operating system; and executing said first operating system as first guest operating system hosted by said hypervisor operating system.