I tried using Disk2VHD to create a VHD of a physical PC. The resulting VM doesn't contain the OS (windows 10 pro) or any of my installed programs. The Disk2VHD process completed successfully. The size of the VHD is the same size as the utilized space on the C:/ drive of the physical machine (600gb of the 930gb total capacity) but when I create the VM (using VirtualBox) the C:/ drive of the VM shows all 930gb are free.

I thought maybe it was because I hadn't checked the "shadow copy" option, so I did the process again with that checked, and the same thing resulted.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? My next thought is confirming that the physical PC supports virtualization in the BIOS settings. I would've thought the disk2VHD process would've failed if this wasn't the case but maybe I'm wrong...

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

I found the easiest way to create a virtual image for Windows 10 (or 7) is to just use the built in 'Create a System Image' in WIN10>Settings>Update and Security>Backup>Go to Backup and Restore Windows7>Create a System Image. I haven't used VirtualBox(VB) for years as I had mixed results, but there are very good tutorials on the web for converting to appropriate format for importing in VB.

I forgot to mention, I never used Disk2VHD when P2Ving, but saw this pop up when looking if you havent seen as might be useful to you. https://www.wintips.org/how-to-convert-physical-machine-to-virtualbox-machine/

 

Last edited: Jul 16, 2023

VirtualBox doesn’t offer an easy graphical utility for converting a physical machine to a virtual machine. If you’re feeling particularly adventerous, they do offer some unsupported instructions for converting a physical Windows computer to a VirtualBox virtual machine. This requires some registry tweaking and shutting down the computer. You’ll then have to manually create a copy of the disk and convert it to a VirtualBox VDI file.

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows

 

A tip is to use VMware Workstation instead. It's more competent than the other hypervisors imo and is great to use on your DAW.
It's quite easy to do with VMware Workstation:

Converting a physical machine for Fusion, Workstation, or Player using Converter Standalone
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2005129


I even use Workstation on Windows to run Mac OSX (for testing purposes).

 

I enabled virtualization on my physical computer and tried disk2vhd again (with shadow copy disabled) and it still didn’t work. Trying the VMWare software now. If this doesn’t work I suppose I’ll try disk2vhd again with shadow copy enabled but I don’t have much confidence that will fix it

 

I tried VMware workstation. The resulting vmdk file is ~600gb, as expected, but the VM in virtualbox still appears as a newly provisioned VM…no disk space is used, no programs installed, and it requires a windows iso to load. I must be doing something wrong.

 

are you sure you're cloning entire partition set? there's EFI partition with bootloader (if not then it won't boot) and in case of TPM or encryption you won't be able to migrate the system at all I'm afraid;

have you tried making a clean VM and cloning disks later?

 

I always use this free utility:
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2
https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/get-download?downloadGroup=CONV62

 

This is what I used most recently and had the same result.

 

That’s an interesting thought. I think I’m cloning the entire partition set but how can I be sure? I leave all drives checked when running Disk2VHD. I’ll upload a picture when I get home. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with TPM or EFI…how can I confirm whether those are set correctly?

also, how would I add the disks after creating a clean VM? I want all my programs to be installed as they are on the physical machine

 

I haven't messed with windows forever, because we have dd on linux and macs. But are you sure that your vm's volume which is now referred to as C: in your post, should not have another different volume name other than c:? Maybe it doesn't matter, but trying to mount a second drive as C: also, may not be a great idea anyway?

I think the idea of a clean VM image that you know was made correctly may help. You could rule out any concerns about your machine not supporting virtualisations, UEFI, SecurBoot, etc. that could make your testing more complicated.

I would get a Windows image from https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/

 

Last edited: Jul 17, 2023

Thank you. I’ve got a windows image. The VM gets created successfully but it appears like a brand new VM. What do I do once I have a new VM created? How do I then load the drive that contains all my program files, VSTs, library paths, etc…. I’m trying to avoid having to reinstall all that (that’s why I’m doing this in the first place)

 

EDIT
I had posted a procedure for P2V'g a Windows10 box once TPM and secure boot disabled, drive decrypted, but deleted it.

After rethinking things, I have been doing P2Vs for many, many years in an enterprise environment and I know how to proceed and what to watch for.

I don't want someone, especially someone inexperienced blaming me if they ruin their P box.

 

Last edited: Jul 17, 2023

Thanks. This is probably wise

 

it would be more of an experiment, but you could make a clean Windows VM just to make sure your virtualization host works properly,
then make a full backup of your physical Windows system (plenty softwares to choose from), but restore it in a VM environment,
either you can have another VM to be a backup server, or have a restore bootloader for a chosen piece of recovery software

 

What is your purpose for the VM?
Also, I noticed in your first post you said; specifically, that when in VirtualBox you are "creating" a VM. Are you actually hitting that command, instead of hitting the "add" button. Because that might be your problem.

 

OBE

 

Last edited: Jul 22, 2023

I was able to get a VM to run everything using VMware thanks everyone!

 

Excellent! Can you please share what Brand and Model (IE. HP \ ENVY Desktop - Intel Core i7) was the physical machine you P2V'd and and Brand and Model are you hosting the VM on? Thank you.

 

sure I’ll do this at some point in the next few days. Don’t have access to the computer right now.