How to convert a Ghost image to Virtual Machine

[Majestic]

Hi all,

I have a client that STILL uses his Windows 98 (!!) Accounting system and needs to close it up before he switches to (I convinced him) to Quickbooks 2015. All that said, on his windows 98 machine that was dying I created a ghost image using Ghost 11.5. Now I've got this image I've promised him I'd be able to port over to virtualbox or vmware so he can run it within Windows 7. Problem is that regardless of the syntax I've googled exhaustively and checked Symantec's knowledge base it doesn't work to convert the image over.

I'm thinking of maybe ghosting his image to another drive and using disk2vhd. I've installed vmware Vcenter converter as well but it doesn't work with Ghost images.

Does anybody here know of a utility I can use to convert from a .GHO image -> .VMDK ? Or have any useful suggestions.

Anything would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Majestic

 

[phaZed]

Why not just restore the Ghost image to a Virtualbox VM by using the Ghost boot CD?

 

[Majestic]

Why not just restore the Ghost image to a Virtualbox VM by using the Ghost boot CD?

Honestly, aside from simply cloning hard drives with Ghost, I haven't ventured further. Could you please summarize the process? It would be much appreciated

Majestic

 

[phaZed]

Basically just make your bootable recovery CD ISO in Norton Ghost and save that to your system. Fire up Virtualbox (and apply your settings) set to boot from the ISO you made. Once the ISO loads you need to point the recovery environment to the GHO file and start the recovery to the newly created VM. Once you have it in Virtualbox you can get it into pretty much any other VM you want... or use the VM you intend on using instead of VB.

EDIT: Restoring a Hard Drive using Norton Ghost

 

[ArtemusComputerTechnology]

The word you used is "promised". Big mistake. Never promise a client if you are unsure that you can keep. I did the process using VMWare in the past and it works.

1. Set up a new virtual machine with a virtual disk large enough to comfortably fit the image (no need to install the OS) and set up booting priority in the virtual machine settings (enter BIOS setup by pressing Esc or F2)to boot the VM session from Ghost DVD or with a bootable media (USB for example) with Ghost executable files on it.
2. Connect an external USB HDD with the Ghost image on it to host computer (or use a DVD but then you have to boot from a USB unless your bootable CD with Ghost executables is an ISO image mounted in VMware settings as the first CD/DVD), then make sure the guest VM will see it (VM settings - devices) and boot the VM, start Ghost software and restore the image to the virtual disk. After the cloned file system boots in the virtual environment, its OS will detect the new virtual hardware and install the necessary drivers.