Possible to create virtual machine from HDD?

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Dullard

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I am running a W7 Ultimate machine, and I had a functioning XP Home machine that recently died. The HDD is still operating and I can access files on it.

I'd like to run the entire XP machine as a VM in the W7 machine, but I've had no luck. I downloaded VMPlayer 4.0.4 I was able to extract a .vhd file of the XP HDD, then converted the .vhd to a .vmdk file. This isn't working, or I'm not smart enough to figure it out.

I tried This tutorial, but I was never able to run the .vmdk disc as the virtual machine.

I can create a blank copy of XP in the virtual machine, I played solitare to make sure it was running, but I haven't been able to get the VM and the disc file together as a machine. I own both OSs, so that's not an issue.

Thanks for any help, but be warned that I'm not too swift when it comes to this sort of thing.
 
danswartz said:
Can you be more specific than 'is not working' or 'never able to run'?
Click to expand...

Sure thing.

I run VMware Player, go to Create New Virtual Machine, follow the instructions to the point where the machine is built (I've built an XP virtual machine this way several times, all the Windows features work like Solitare - I'm just not able to integrate the files on the physical HDD from the dead XP machine), then edit the machine details by removing the blank virtual hard drive and inserting the .vmdk file as the hard drive. I usually get the error message (I'm not at the machine at the moment, so paraphrase) "The specified file is not a virtual hard drive file" or something to that effect.

So that's the part that's not working. Either I'm not creating the correct .vmdk file or I'm not loading it correctly. I haven't been able to directly create a .vmdk file since VM Converter no longer supports that feature as far as I can tell. I can create a .vhd file and convert that to a .vmdk, but VMware Player doesn't recognize these files.

So that's the never able to run part. I get hung every time I try to use the .vmdk file as my virtual hard drive.

I've tried building the virtual XP machine first by loading the XP OS up in VMware Player and editing in the .vmdk file later, and I've tried the "I will add the operating system later" approach.

Either way, it's not working and I've never been able to run the old XP machine. I have been able to run a bare virtual XP install.
 
Obviously something got messed up when you imaged it. Can you plug the drive into another machine, run clonezilla and do a disk => image copy to say an SMB share somewhere, create a windows xp virtual machine with no disk, boot that vm with clonezilla iso mounted as cd, and do a image => disk (where the 'disk' is the VM's disk of the same or bigger size as the physical one). that might work, although if the virtual hardware is too different, xp might BSOD or somesuch.
 
That's the drawback to being a Dullard, I have no clue as to the steps you just outlined.

Let me do a little reading on those terms and I'll get back to you.

One thing: If I can ressurect the dead XP machine, could I then burn an .iso of that rig to a CD and use that to construct a new VM?
 
I wouldn't think you could fit enough on even a DVD (only 4GB or so?) But if you can get it to boot, I would try my steps that way too.
 
Do you currently have the XP machine's HD as a vhd file? If so have you tried it in Virtual PC just to see if that file is working okay? Windows 7 has a version of virtual pc included that you could use for testing.

Have you used any imaging applications like Norton Ghost or DriveImage in the past? Basically Dan's just suggesting making an image file of the old XP HD and then booting the new VM off the bootable iso image that contains the imaging program (basically like when you boot your physical PC using a bootable CD). If the bootable ISO support it you could also use a USB flash drive or USB external HD to hold the image file from the XP HD. Then perform a restore of the backup image you created inside the VM.

As Dan posted it's possible being the VM hardware will be different from the physical hardware that Windows may give you some problems due to driver issues. I'd highly suggest trying to boot into safe mode first once you've restored to work through any strange driver issues that may occur.
 
@OP

One issue to be aware of is that as far as I know, when you create a VM in VMware, the UUID of the VM is also stored in the VMDK file, so your replacement VMDK must also have this UUID.
 
Chimay said:
Do you currently have the XP machine's HD as a vhd file? If so have you tried it in Virtual PC just to see if that file is working okay? Windows 7 has a version of virtual pc included that you could use for testing.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have it. It just shows up as a black screen when I run it in Windows Virtual PC. I made the .vhd file with Disk2vhd, I guess I can try it with Windows Virtual PC.

Have you used any imaging applications like Norton Ghost or DriveImage in the past?
Click to expand...

Yes, I saved an image of the drive with Norton Ghost. I have the XP drive connected, it currently reads as E:, I have a .vhd of the XP drive saved on H:, and I have an image of the XP drive on F:

Basically Dan's just suggesting making an image file of the old XP HD and then booting the new VM off the bootable iso image that contains the imaging program (basically like when you boot your physical PC using a bootable CD).
Click to expand...

This booting the VM off the bootable iso has me stumped, I'm not exactly sure how to pull that off. That thing fires off, I'm not sure I can even point it to a CD during the boot up.

The more I get into this, I realize I'm in way over my head. The VMware Player site says

" With its user-friendly interface, VMware Player makes it effortless for anyone to try out Windows 8 developer release, Windows 7, Chrome OS or the latest Linux releases, or create isolated virtual machines to safely test new software and surf the Web. VMware Player can also be used to run a virtual copy of an old PC so that you can recycle the old machines you have under your desk or stored in the closet."

I've been trying for days now to just get a single virtual machine built and with VMware Player, Windows Virtual PC, and Windows XP Mode and I'm just not making any headway. What's "effortless" for the folks that designed VMware Player and you guys is just a slogging grind for a dumbass like me.

parityboy said:
@OP

One issue to be aware of is that as far as I know, when you create a VM in VMware, the UUID of the VM is also stored in the VMDK file, so your replacement VMDK must also have this UUID.
Click to expand...

See, that's the sort of thing that's really killing my progress. I had to Google UUID to even know what it was, and I have no idea as to how to use that info. Could that be why my .vmdk file loads always fail? I just don't know. All I know is that I'm not to the "effortless" stage quite yet, but I'll do some more digging and see if I can try to understand some more of the stuff I'll need to learn to build a virtual machine.

Thanks to all you guys, really. I do stuff in real life that seems to blow other guys' minds, and I think to myself, "Wow, what a dumbass!" so I know how you guys must feel dealing with me.
 
If you have the XP HDD converted to VHD file, get the free converter from starwind to convert it to .VMDK for vmware player, i had to do the same thing for a customers server that died.
HDD -->convert to VHD with Disk2VHD from sysinternals --->convert to VMDK file with the converter from Starwind--->booted up in vmware player.
Obviously had to uninstall drivers for the original hardware and then install the vmware tools/drivers, but it worked
 
First of all, may I ask why you are attempting to do this? what are you trying to accomplish?

Second, i'm not much help in the technical nitty gritty, but just so you know you're basically going to be attempting to boot the hdd in a different computer. I've had pretty good experience doing this with windows vista and 7, however, windows XP LOVES Blue Screening when attempting to do this. I would try to configure the machine with minimal hardware and if your virtual machine lets you attempt to emulate different chipset hardware you may want to play with that. You can also try virtualbox if you don't get any luck with VMPlayer
 
Dullard said:
This booting the VM off the bootable iso has me stumped, I'm not exactly sure how to pull that off. That thing fires off, I'm not sure I can even point it to a CD during the boot up.
Click to expand...

If I remember right Norton Ghost creates the image using its own file format. So if you normally use a bootable CD to boot up the Ghost tools and restore your images on new desktops. Just take that bootable CD and create an ISO file version of it using a free program like Discimage. You could also download and install clonezilla and see about creating a direct ISO if it supports that option.

Then once you've created a blank virtual machine with either VMplayer or Virtual PC. There should be a way to view the virtual hardware settings for the newly created VM. In the virtual hardware settings you would choose the CD-ROM drive and specify the ISO of the Norton Boot Disc or if you have that HD images into a bootable ISO. Make sure to look around for any check boxes as well that may say "Connect at boot". This way the iso image is loaded at the boot of the VM.

As for your concerns about virtualization it's not as hard as it seems right now. Once you get your head around how everything is setup and works you'll be fine.
 
serpretetsky said:
First of all, may I ask why you are attempting to do this? what are you trying to accomplish?
Click to expand...

I had some programs on the old XP machine that I really doubt I'd be able to re-install in W7, plus a lot of files that I might be able to access and crack back open, I just thought it'd be handy to be able to open them in the XP virtual machine. I have two virtual machines at work, one is an NT4 machine running a Pentium 200 with 64MB of RAM. It runs great, and the same reason...it has some old stuff we still want to access. I can just click on those old programs and run them just like I was still plugged into the NT4 machine. But the physical machine hasn't been around for years.

I was just too naive and thought I'd be able to replicate something along the same lines with an XP machine, but that's just not going to happen. Sure would have been handy, but that's life I guess.
 
Is everything on your old drive still accessible? If so, use macrium reflect. Download the trial edition and install it as "standard" license. From there open the program with that drive plugged in and choose to "image the drive". Once that is done you will have an image of thst drive. There is a built in image to vhd converter in that program. Once the vhd has been created, create a vm with the vhd file and make sure everything works correctly after that. Hope that helps.
 
you need to start windows in recovery mode as starwind do only convert images they don't patch drivers or whatever

dbwillis said:
If you have the XP HDD converted to VHD file, get the free converter from starwind to convert it to .VMDK for vmware player, i had to do the same thing for a customers server that died.
HDD -->convert to VHD with Disk2VHD from sysinternals --->convert to VMDK file with the converter from Starwind--->booted up in vmware player.
Obviously had to uninstall drivers for the original hardware and then install the vmware tools/drivers, but it worked
Click to expand...
 
/yes, but if your going with basic vmware install, after all the new hardware is detected, you just install the vmware tools, theres no need for another app to inject drivers, afterwards just install the original unwanted drivers for the original hardware.
 
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