I just installed a 2 TB drive in my PC to replace the 500GB drive that is failing that was there. I don’t have time to install all my software yet but I have VMWARE Workstation. Is there a way I can image the 500GB drive into a format that vmware can read and save it to the 2TB drive.
I’m doing a show for VM right now. I’ll see if I can get one of the guys here to come answer your question.
That would be super!
Okay, I talked to someone here, and they had some complicated things to say, so lemme first ask you something: Is there some reason you can’t just copy the files from the 500G to the 2TB drive?
When I’ve replaced my hard drives, I just install the old one as a B: drive and copy shit to the new A: drive. Or I put the old drive in an snclosure, making it into an external hard drive, then copy stuff over to the new internal.
The VM person I talked to wanted to know if your 500G drive was “in virtual” or “virtualized”. She said if it wasn’t already in virt, there’s something you can download that will do it, then you can do what you want to do.
Still not sure why you can’t just copy the files over to the new drive, tho.
The 500GB drive is not a virtual drive. It was what I was booting from until yesterday. I don’t want to just copy the files over because I would have to re-install all my applications and I want to see what ones I really need versus what I installed and never used.
Why can’t you look through the drive’s contents and selectively copy only those files you need? There is no reason you would need to re-install all of your applications…
Well for starters the drive is failing so the less I use it the better. I don’t want to install my tax software again just to submit my return then uninstall it. I Also some of the applications I have I no longer have the legal right to re-install because they were from give away of the day type sites so the installer will no longer run.
Regardless I just found an app to convert the drive to a vhd which is the format that Virtual PC uses and it appears I can mount that image in Windows 7 then point VMware to it and I’m good to go.
There are utilities which will move a physical Windows machine to a virtual one. VMWare has one, called, rather unimaginatively, P2V Assistant. We moved a number of physical servers to VMWare using this tool. Worked like a charm.
I had tried that but it wanted a live system not one that was just residing on another drive in the same system.
You can’t just virtualize the drive then run it as a VM because the VM uses different “hardware” from the physical machine. Can you remove the 2 TB and boot to the 500 GB drive, then use P2V Assistant to capture it?
*Disclaimer: I work for VMware, and I used to be part of a team that provided some technical support for Converter. *
Yes, Manny, you can absolutely convert your physical drive into one that can be used with Workstation. The product you need is called Converter, and it’s a free download from here: http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/infrastructure_operations_management/vmware_vcenter_converter_standalone/5_0 (Converter used to be called P2V (that’s “physical to virtual”) Assistant, years ago.)
If you have any trouble, I’d recommend taking a look at the in-product help, and this Knowledge Base article: VMware Knowledge Base
As for this:
yoyodyne, I won’t say you’re wrong, because I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at. The VM does use virtualized versions of generic hardware, rather than the specific hardware that the physical machine does. But that’s what the virtualization process does, it convinces the OS to use the virtual hardware rather than the old hardware. (I know that’s vague, but I’m not going to try to be more specific – the details are in the documentation, I imagine.)
So, yes, you can virtualize the OS 500 GB drive and store it on a 2 TB drive. You should need as much space on the 2 TB drive for storage as you have used space on the 500 GB drive.
Anything for Oracle VirtualBox? I’d like to move my windows 7 instance into a virtual box under linux.
I’m sorry, I missed this post. Yes, Converter expects to be installed into the OS you want to convert. There is a product that lets you boot from it, to convert a non-running OS, called Converter Cold Clone ISO. Unfortunately, this product is only available if you have a VirtualCenter license…
I know the drive is failing – can you boot from it one last time to install Converter and run the conversion? If not, and you’re able to use that app you found to make a .vhd, you should be all set.
As I think you already know, Workstation can make VMs from Virtual PC virtual disks. In Workstation, go to File > Open, find and select the .vhd, and click Import.
The installation of Windows on the original hardware has drivers and registry settings specific to that hardware. In the same way you can’t take the drive from one machine and plug it into another and expect it to work, you can’t plug it into a VM and expect it to work. A possible problem is that the hard drive controllers are different, and you’ll get a blue-screen in the VM as soon as it tries to boot because Windows doesn’t recognize the virtual controller. Or the original install was using ACHI and the VM can only use IDE or SCSI emulation.
This is the kind of stuff the converter takes care of.
I attempted to do this a while ago, however I failed because the OEM license that came with my copy of Win7 does not allow it to be virtualized. Presumably if I upgraded to the Ultimate version, this restriction is lifted, is what I read online somewhere. Basically it was an extra hundred bux that I didn’t want to spend.
I used MS own tools to do the migration:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=3896
It’s Sysinternals Disk2vhd software. Anyway, the vhd creation process went without a hitch, however when you set it up in Virtualbox, and boot up the vm, you will get umpteen Blue Screens Of Death. All unsurpassable, unless you upgrade the Win7 version without the vm encumbrance.
So, moral of the story, make sure your copy of Win7 is licensed to run in a vm environment! Otherwise you will have a hypervisor with a junk/locked vhd file with all your stuff in it!
Ah, yes. I definitely misunderstood you last time, because I completely agree now. As you say, you need to go through the conversion process in order to use it.
To convert, you need the original running PC plus you need a PC running VMware Workstation to virtualize onto. 2 functioning PC’s.
OTOH, if you can borrow a PC using WOrkstation from someone else, and it has room to virtualize your PC, then virtualize the dying PC; then swap disks, install workstation, and import the virtual PC from the borrowed machine to the upgraded PC.
Vmware says it can also import from a Norton Ghost image, although I’ve never tried it. Ghost your PC to an external USB disk, swap in the new drive with workstation, and import the ghost image.
The converter basically creates a new set of windows drivers/hardware interfaces e that is standard to all versions of VMWare. Once you install the VMware workstation on the new machine, the VM created by the software linked above connects to the generic hardware interface created by the workstation software.
Your concerns about hardware conflicts are exactly what VM’s are built to avoid. Once a VM is in place and runnign you can migrate to different hardware easily just by installing the software then copying the VM over. Since the VM is just one big file, you get the whole machine intact all at one whack. Backups and system restores also become very easy. A machine with a 500GB VM but 2TB of hdd space can easily contain a rolling backup of the whole VM sitting right there on the computer.
Something viruses out the main VM, no biggie, delete it and launch yesterdays backup. Motherboard burns out, move the VM to new working hardware, repair machine at your leisure.
Actually it has to be pro or better to run the VM. Home machines have a restriction against it. This is to make sure businesses buy the proper OS that has all the extra support for larger networks, domains, etc.