If your hunger for risky redundantness needs to be satisfied, you can try booting your "real" Windows side from your "real" Ubuntu side and your "real" Ubuntu side from your "real" Windows side by having VirtualBox use the real hard drive through a vmdk file. Just backup everything first. *The above was meant to be a theoretical thriller more than anything else. Kind of like rootkits that attack hypervisors. Just don't let Windows and Wine mix. That can break things. I'm giving you a sledge hammer; be responsible (only use for copying thngs over): http://legroom.net/2007/08/05/how-mount-vmware-disk-images-under-linux Cheers, Jake P.S While I'm at it, don't run Wine as root, either.