i've got my old xp installed on a hard drive and want to run it as i would have from my old pc. is there a way to run it from virtual box or another visualization program?
The only way I have seen any limited success in doing that is with hyper-v. You need Windows 8.x PRO or a server edition though. With the XP disk attached boot the install media, then use it to set sysprep on the XP hdd. It will also highly prefer you convert to a .vhd, though it can be possible to mount physical disk as well. In most cases, you are probably better off starting fresh... you can get a legit ready made VM image here.
