Hyper-V

JNode is running great in Hyper-V.

If you're using Windows 8, Hyper-V is a natural choice since it comes with the OS.
To run JNode on it, just create a simple virtual machine and use one of the JNode iso files to boot from.

You can also safely play with harddisks. I created a virtual harddisk (VHD format) and mapped it under IDE 0.
When you are not running this virtual machine, you can use the Windows Disk Management to attach the VHD in Windows. This enables you to create/view partitions, format and even read/write data on it.

For now JNode is not aware that it is running in Hyper-V. I hope to add that in the future. Then JNode can also signal to Hyper-V that it is still alive and all kinds of other goodies.