DrStalker

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7 Answers
Zoredache
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J osh K
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I have a hard-drive froma dead server, and I would like to convert it to a virtual machine. (original system
OS is windows 2003)
I know VMWare converter can convert a physical machine to a VMWare image, but is there any way to
convert a hard drive to a VMWare hard-drive image to use as a virtual machine? I can't find such an ability
listed in the description of VMWare convertor.
vmware-converter virtualization hard-drive
asked Aug 20 '09 at 1:39
Well you could connect the drive to some computer that will support it, and take a disk image with ghost/dd
/favorite-cloning-util. Then create a new VM boot up your disk-image utility and restore the image.. If you
are lucky all the drivers vmware needs will already be installed into windows.
answered Aug 20 '09 at 1:59
I eneded up going with this solution, because all attempts to run the haddrive as a virtual disk resulted in a system
that woudl bluescreen instantly on boot, and refused to work with the windows installer repair mode. DrStalker
Aug 24 '09 at 0:39
If this method doesn't work and the VM bluescreens on starting (as with the laptop and desktop I tried this
procedure on) then you might want to try my suggestion, based on Dave M's suggestion. Mark Booth J an 3 at
15:37
You can use what's called "raw disk mode" to mount that drive into a VM. Plug it into your machine with
VMware on it, and create a normal VM. Then, delete the disk image associated with it, and "add" a new
disk to the VM. You'll then have the option to use an existing disk as the backing store for the VMDK file.
At this point, you ought to be able to duplicate the VM, and the copy should have a real VMDK file with real
data in it.
I've "virtually resurrected" an ancient Windows 95 laptop in this manner.
answered Aug 20 '09 at 2:14
Have you done this with any more recent operating system? I've tried this on two different Windows XP machines
(one a desktop, one a laptop) and it just results in a VM which blue screens on boot. Mark Booth J an 2 at 23:20
You can connect the drive to a functional systemand then create an image of the drive with Symantec
Backup Exec SystemRecovery. That image can be converted to a VMware image using the conversion
tool in Backup Exec SystemRecovery. I belive there is a free 60 day trial version that can be downloaded.
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Convert a hard-drive into a VMWare machine
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Dave M
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Bart Silverstrim
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Ariel Antigua
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Have used several times with good success.
answered Aug 20 '09 at 15:18
Thanks DaveM, this was the solution I went with in the end, I've provided a full procedure and some updated links in
my answer. Mark Booth J an 2 at 23:21
Some have already mentioned the direct disk mode, but there could be problems with drivers and such.
Sometimes VMWare gets finicky if the converter hasn't intervened to play with the HAL and drivers for the
hard disk controller, so you end up with a virtual paperweight.
One option to try if you're just trying to get data off the drive is MacriumReflect; it clones disks and
enables you to mount the resulting image as a lettered drive on Windows. Free for most functionality and
personal use, last I checked. Information can be found here.
answered Aug 20 '09 at 11:53
A few days ago i do this first converting the HD to a Acronis image and then i use vCenter Converter to
import into ESXi.
answered Aug 22 '09 at 3:34
what version of acronis? i'm having trouble getting vcenter conv. to read the tib files from br10 scape J an 4 at
18:22
We have just performed this operation on two PCs, a dead desktop and a dead laptop.
It was a long haul though, and most of the suggestions here had too little detail to get us past the problems
we had with those solutions. We also look at the solutions over at How to convert laptop drive (with a
dead laptop) for use as VMware image? were also of limited use.
What didn't work
We tried creating a new VM with both raw disk access and it's own virtual disk, cloning one to the other
(using clonezilla) and then running the VMware convert utility on it, but that resulted in VMs which blue
screened on boot, so that wasn't a solution.
We tried the create a new VM, attach the raw hard drive to the VM and convert method, but that just gave
a cryptic error message with the current vmwar e- vdi skmanager program.
What worked
The solution which finally worked was the one suggested by Dave M. Here are the specific steps we took,
with updated links:
We downloaded and installed the trialware version of Symantec SystemRecovery Server Edition
(which is currently Symantec SystemRecovery 2011 Server Edition FREE 60-day Evaluation!).
We then created a one-off backup of each target hard drive (one for the desktop PC hard drive we
had, one for the laptop hard drive), creating two recovery points. Then we performed a one-off
conversion each to a virtual machine.
We selected the option to Run Windows Mini-Setup and Split virtual disk into 2 GB (.vmdk) files. The
former substantially reduces the time to get the resulting VM up and running, while the second allows
you to transport VMs around on memory sticks that don't support >2GB files/
We then booted each VM in VMware Player, the Windows mini setup ran through quickly, installing the
new virtual drivers & replacing the old real drivers.
Finally we installed VMware tools on each VM and let the VMs pick up the new VMware tools
optimised drivers.
The only downside with this method is that it does require re-activation of windows, so make sure you
have noted down the product key of the dead machine before you start.
Note that we tried this procedure on a Windows 8 PC first, but couldn't get SSRSE to run after it was
installed, so reverted to using a Windows XP machine (on the same hardware). We assume that when the
trial gets upgraded from2011 to 2013, this problemwill go away.
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Mark Booth
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Mark Henderson
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Before this I've only ever virtualised running machines and the process has been quick and painless with
VMware converter. I was amazed to find out that virtualising a dead systemfromit's hard drive alone
would be so much more involved, I just assumed that VMware converter would just have an option to do it.
edited J an 2 at 23:16 answered J an 2 at 22:53
I also used the steps Mark listed, but had to look up how to boot with only a vdmk from hacktolive.org/wiki
/Using_VMware_images_(.vmdk_files) Thanks for the help saved me! J arrod J ul 18 at 17:23
This isn't exactly what you're asking for, but if you can attach the disk to the VMWare host, you can assign
a whole disk to a VM and it will access it natively (of course, it will still have the HAL for the previous
server).
answered Aug 20 '09 at 1:40
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