Linux from windows....?

I was wondering if there was a program (preferably free) that would enable me to boot ubuntu linux off of my ext2 partition from windows vista into some kind of vm. I would make a vm with a virtual hard drive, but all of my programs are on my ext2 partition so I need to boot it from there. in other words I do not want to reinstall linux on a flash drive or anything like that, I want to run it in windows from a primary partition on my hard drive since all of my stuff is already in linux.