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Create WMWare image from existing installation?

M

Mohonri

Supreme [H]ardness
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I have a Windows XP installation, with which I am quite happy. I would like to create a VMWare image from it so I can run a virtual machine inside Linux on this same laptop. Is there a way to do this? Dual booting isn't really an option, unfortunately, since I need both places at once. I've found a way to use an existing installation inside VMWare under Ubuntu, but I would prefer to package up the current installation, wipe the whole drive, and have only Ubuntu running 'natively'.

In other words, I'm currently running Windows XP on this laptop. I want to take an image of the current installation, wipe the hard drive, install Ubuntu, and run the Windows image within WMWare. Is that possible, or do I have to go through the XP installation process?
 
I'm pretty sure you have to create a new "image" for WinXP. I'm not aware of any tools that would take an installation and create a VM out of it.

 
You can try to port to VMWare but usually, the deal breaker is the inability to recognize the material and cause a BSOD. I think you need to prepare the OS by installing the VMWare drivers for the material first...

It's a lot of headache for a small gain unless you have tweaked your OS so much you would rather not redo it again.

 
Interesting find there ! Try that and report the results ;)

 
A little more digging also found me this: link 1, link 2.

I saw another site that mentioned the need for the VMWare SCSI driver, but we'll see if I actually end up needing it. I actually have a dual-boot setup right now, so I'm in Ubuntu and creating the image as I type. I'll report back if/when there's something to report.
 
Any follow ups on this? I'm also curious to know about VM images.

 
I have actually done this at work as a proof of concept. We tested with a couple testing/dev machines and actually recently converted on of our light-use production servers from physical to virtual.

Use the VMWare p2v tools and things will tend to go very smoothly. All you have to so is create teh image, shut down the physical machine, boot up the virtual one. Bam! Done!

If something goes wrong you still have the physical machine until you are comfortable with how the new VM is running. :)
 
I eventually abandoned the idea and just created a VM from the install CD, so I'm afraid I haven't pursued it further.
 
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