Dsk2VHD - suggestions?

[Xander]

I've messed with VMs enough that I'm comfortable with them but have not yet tried converting HDs into VMs ... till now.

I've got a customer (whose system runs fine) but he's looking ahead to next year when XP support runs out. We tossed around a few ideas and I said I'd be glad to look into whether or not running as a VM would be a valid alternative. Plus, it would help on that learning curve, right?

So, I left one of my externals with him that day and fired up Dsk2vhd with instructions to run it once with "[x] prepare for VM" and once without, just for good measure. The next day, he dropped off the external.

So, I've fired up Virtualbox and have added the VHDs. On recommendations, they're set up as IDE drives (which I believe the original drive is anyway).
But, here's what I get: (note the "ticked", "noticked" naming.)

...and they each just stay there.

Here's the IDE/SATA page in Settings:

Ideas?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Have you tried mounting in Hyper-V? I've used Disk2VHD before...but not for Virtualbox...was for Hyper-V server, which it worked fine for.

 

[SAG]

Hyper-V, ESXi, and VMW Workstation - I've had success with all of these.
I never use the "Prepare for VirtualPC" option though.

 

[mikeroq]

I find that when I get a OS install that doesn't boot on new hardware, or in a virtual machine 95% of the time using "P2P Adjust OS Wizard" in Paragon Hard Disk Manager works. The newest version also has a "P2V Adjust OS" I suspect it does the same thing.

Acronis also has this feature under "universal restore"

 

[fabs]

What about VMWare Converter ?
I use it to convert local physical machine to a VMWare virtual machine. Then, set up VMWare Player and run the VM from there.

The process is quite simple

Regards,

Fab

 

[Xander]

I'd tried the Converter a week or so ago but I think I glossed over one of the options. I can't do much with the two VHDs I've got (shame, really, that little program could've been dead handy) BUT I ran it on my waiting-for-upgrade bench machine and, as you can see, now have Vista within Vista (within ScreenConnect on my main PC). It is, of course, running like sludge but I'm only worried about proof of concept.

Thanks for the nudge, Fabrice.

 

[PC Ops]

Don't give up on Disk2VHD just yet Xander. I've used it on several occasions. On a couple I've had immediate success. On some others I had to toy around with the VM settings for success and only on one occasion I had to dig deep to get the VM working in Virtualbox. It took so much time though that it isn't worth it to bother again. I just had to make it work that time (bordering obsession)
Disk2VHD never dídn't work (yet).

In my experience:

• XP plays hardball more often.
• In the case of XP trouble: try virtually mounting a Win XP disk in settings, boot from it and do a repair install. Had some success with this.
• With Vista and Seven I have a better success rate.
• Turning a live machine into a VM has a better (immediate) success rate than turning a slaved drive into a VM.
• Juggling with the settings often helps.
• Acronis' Universal Restore, as mentioned by Mikeroq, is helpful as well.
• And of course Google. Filtering the one solution that fits your needs can be a pain though...

No experience doing Win 8 yet.

Conclusion: If it takes too much time and effort to get a working VM out of Disk2VHD I leave it and move on.