Create disk image of C drive and run on VMware virtual machine

4

3

I run Windows XP SP3 Pro on my desktop PC and I want to create an image of its C Drive. I'd like to run this image in a virtual machine on VMware.

How can I do this?

  1. Install XP in VMware first – Create a restore point image from the desktop PC and restore that image in the virtual machine
  2. Create a live disk from my desktop's C drive and run it on VMware.
  3. Any other way?

Possible Solutions: Creating a Windows Virtual PC image from a Physical machine

spt025

Posted 2013-08-24T08:55:31.197

Reputation: 201

I have used Paragon Drive Copy 10.0 Personal Edition for that in the past for Virtual PC. Maybe they have something for VMWare too? Not free, but cheap. – Jan Doggen – 2013-08-24T09:22:07.243

Vmware or Virtual Machine is not an issue... Can use either of them.. – spt025 – 2013-08-24T09:26:08.927

4What's wrong with the answer in your link? – ZippyV – 2013-08-24T09:32:58.750

2

possible duplicate of Creating a Windows Virtual PC image from a Physical machine

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2013-08-24T13:53:16.350

In the link given above Windows Virtual PC is not at all nice software to use and doesn't even load the XP in W7. Tried all possible ways then only commenting – spt025 – 2013-08-25T04:45:38.023

Answers

5

I tried it using the answers given in the links above but they did not work properly and people here didn't understand the problem correctly – so I found a solution myself:

  1. When you copy your C: drive (Windows XP or Windows 7 installed drive) just use Disk2vhd (I got this from the above quoted answer)

  2. Use WinImage tool to convert VHD to VDMK – in the fourth step of the given link, go for the second option, else the first option would create a huge .vdmk image.

  3. Install VMware and use that vdmk file: How to open VMDK File?

spt025

Posted 2013-08-24T08:55:31.197

Reputation: 201

did winimage, but it doesn't treat the image and maybe it should, so I got this BSOD about hard disk http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/419873-help-need-to-boot-a-vmdk-vhd-but-it-blue-screens one method not mentioned there that might get round the BSOD, I may try is sysprep

– barlop – 2015-07-16T00:03:37.900

2

I've done this before using VMWare VCenter Converter which is a free util from VMWare that will convert Windows or Linux computers to a VMWare image. I know this is an old question, but it's hard to beat the simplicity of this utility.

Gary Walker

Posted 2013-08-24T08:55:31.197

Reputation: 121

it's small but it looks like a client/server style app.. not as simple as it could be for the task, and it uses 3 different TCP ports. – barlop – 2015-07-16T02:57:02.180