Virtual machine location

[John Perry]

Hello,

I've successfully installed several virtual machines, now, all under
Windows 7. Simple installation goes well; I'm using my opensuse 13.1
installation regularly without issue.

I have a 1TB disk in a Samsung NP700Z7C laptop; I divided the disk into
two 500G partitions, one using the Windows files system, the other using
ext2 for linux. W7 runs fine in its partition; suse runs fine in its
partition (dual-boot configuration).

I really like being able to switch between OS's instantly, without
rebooting. Unfortunately, VB doesn't let me choose which partition to
create a VM in. Using ext2fsd I can read the linux partition with both
W7 and the suse VM. The suse VM has only 20G size, which is not a big
deal because I can just use the 500G linux partition for non-system
files, but it's a pain to have to start up the VM manually each time I
have to reboot W7.

I've read the manual about installing VM's in external partitions and
especially foreign file systems; I'm not expert enough to feel
comfortable pushing through the risks listed in the manual.

Or is the problem only with foreign files systems? If I reformat the
linux partition for W7, will W7 then let me choose where to put my VM's?
or, is there a way to be sure my linux machines are using the linux
partition directly, without the double conversion from ext2 to W7 to
ext2 and back? is there something else I could do to get a more natural
setup?

Thanks,

john perry