So, I decided I had to break down and install Windows in a virtual machine, for some critical software that has no Linux equivalent. I downloaded the iso, and I copied the image to an SSD with the dd command in shell. It appears to be a good drive, containing the following:

/run/media/simberg/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/support
/run/media/simberg/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/sources
/run/media/simberg/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/efi
/run/media/simberg/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/boot
/run/media/simberg/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/setup.exe
/run/media/simberg/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/bootmgr.efi
/run/media/simberg/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/bootmgr
/run/media/simberg/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/autorun.inf

But it won’t boot. Any ideas what the issue might be?

[Update a while later]

OK, I’m a little confused by the comments. I’m not sure I understand what the “virtual drive” in VB is. I thought that it was something created on my hard drive that was accessible by VB, but I wanted to have the OS on SSD, not on the hard drive, for speed. I tried doing what Charles suggested (per the less-than-clear VB manual), and it didn’t work. When I started the machine from the ISO, it didn’t do anything. I also tried booting the SSD inside the machine, after writing the image to it using dd, with no joy. So I tried rebooting my computer from it to see if it had a good OS on it, and it wouldn’t boot. So I’m kind of stuck.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, new clue. When it fails to open, here is the error message:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine WIndows 10.

AMD-V is disabled in the BIOS (or by the host OS) (VERR_SVM_DISABLED).

Result Code:	NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:	ConsoleWrap
Interface:	IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}

So is this something I have to change in Fedora, or in the BIOS? If the former, what would it involve?

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, according to this, I have to go into the BIOS, so it will have to wait until I’m ready to reboot. But that still doesn’t explain why I can’t boot the computer itself from the Windows SSD.

[Update a while later]

OK, I went into the BIOS, but I couldn’t find any setting that seemed like the one on that web page. I swapped out the Windows drive for the Fedora drive, and it still won’t boot. Not sure where to go from here.

[Update a while later]

OK, looking at the board manual, and I guess it’s buried under CPU features. Guess I’ll try again.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, I enabled virtualization, and don’t get the error now. Instead, I get “No bootable medium found! System halted.”

So I’m back to my original question. Why is this SSD not bootable?

[Update a few minutes later]

So, if I dd the Windows ISO to the SSD, is that all I should have to do, or is there some other incantation required to make it bootable?

[Afternoon update]

OK, so I made my virtual drive 100G, and I put the ISO on a 60G SSD. I blew away the previous machine, and started a new one. This time, when it asked me to use the ISO, I chose it, and it finally booted the Windows installation disk. I’m assuming that because the vdmk file points to the SSD, it install on the SSD? Or…?

[Late afternoon update]

OK, I seem to be in business. I installed Windows, loaded GuestAdditions, adjusted my screen, and I now have one Linux screen and one Windows screen running off the same machine.

[A while later]

Welp, there seems to be a problem. Windows keeps locking up my entire machine. It goes into a mode in which the cursor is just an arrow, regardless of location and context, and I can’t use any Linux applications. I can’t free it up until I kill the Windows VM process.

[Evening update]

OK, I’ve been running Windows without incident for a while now. Apparently it works fine, as long as you don’t try to, you know, actually launch a program in it.

[A couple minutes later]

Yup. I tried to launch Brave, and instant freeze. It’s a great OS, as long as you don’t plan to run any software on it.

[Update another minute later]

Oh, fun. When I reboot it, it decides to do a system update. We’ll see if this fixes anything. But I’m sure glad I don’t rely on this OS for anything important.

[Thursday-morning update]

Well, the machine has been running for a few hours without incident. I just started Brave an hour or so ago, and it’s not having any problems. Maybe it just took it a while to stabilize after upgrades.

[Bumped]

OK, things were going fine until I went to full screen. That froze the machine, and my cursor (I could still move it, but it was stuck on the hand symbol). I couldn’t do anything with my open Linux apps, other than (fortunately) my system manager, which I used to kill the machine. Once I did that, it was fine. So I’ll have to try that again and see if it’s the full-screen switch that’s causing the problem. If so, I guess I just won’t do that.

[Bumped again]

[Update a couple minutes later]

Well, I restarted the machine, went to full screen, and things are OK for now. So I still don’t know what causes it.