Back-up Image to Virtual Machine

Question

Prior to updating my development machine from Windows 7 Pro to Windows 8.1 I did a full Microsoft back-up as well as a full Norton 15 ghost recovery point. After a few weeks of working I discovered that some software I required is not available for Windows 8. How can I convert either of those back-ups into a virtual machine for use now?

Everything I have attempted so far as not worked. The OS was served previously from a 250gb SSD. If I need to get another drive with the former files replicated to it in order to stand up the old system again one time to create a VM somehow, that's fine. It just will not make sense to have to re-select a different a drive to boot from each restart. I am looking to end up with a VM solution to have ongoing.

Answer 1

If you are using Virtualbox as your VM, it is fairly easy. I have tried this with MS VPC and did not have much luck.

First, you need to image the backup to a VHD:
Create a new VHD of appropriate size in disk management.
Mount the VHD in windows.
Use Ghost to image the backup to the VHD
Verify that the VHD now contains the expected directory structure and files.
Unmount the VHD

Now create a virtualbox VM, and select the VHD as the boot media. The specific configuration should be determined by your needs, and may need manipulation to boot. Most likely, the VM will not boot correctly, sometimes changes need to be made to the windows boot configuration or drivers to make everything work. I had the best luck with the Lsilogic SCSI controller for booting, as the drivers were already installed prior to backup.