Move Windows 2000 to VBox

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Cannobina
Posts: 8
Joined: 27. Apr 2023, 13:58

Move Windows 2000 to VBox

Post by Cannobina »

Hi guys
I am a new member of VBox users and I will try the following:

Move a whole Windows 2000 system from my aged but still running Thinkpad R40 (2003) to a new Thinkpad P1 (2022 with Windows 10) using VBox.

This will not go easy as my web research found out.

If anybody has experience with this task or has done this successfully it would be very helpful for me to rely on that expertice.

The main goal is to avoid the blue screen at the first start in VBox.

By now I got the following recommendations from different sources:

- Go to the life system Windows 2000 and prepare it for the next boot with sysprep.exe or merge_ide.reg to adwice Windows to drop all settings of current harddisk driver and graphics.
- Make a copy of the harddisk with disk2vhd.exe or CloneVDI
- Create a new virtual system in VBox and load the VDI

or

- Go to the life system Windows 2000 and prepare it for the next boot as mentioned above.
- Make a backup of the running system Windows 2000 with Windows Backup utility ntbackup.exe. Save system state and drive C:
- Create a new virtual system in VBox and install a plain Windows 2000 from original CD.
- Restore old system settings via Windows Restore utility ntbackup.exe.
- Restart
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Move Windows 2000 to VBox

Post by mpack »

This is called a P2V and in fact it shouldn't be too difficult if you stick to Intel CPUs, particularly if they are not too much on the bleeding edge.

The main thing is to run MergeIDE inside Win2K before you image the disk. This makes registry changes which make Win2K more forgiving of changes to the hard disk controller, which is usually the main problem during a migration to a VM or another physical PC.

Otherwise it's not rocket science: just keep the recipe of the VM as close as possible to that of the original PC regarding number of cores, memory and disk sizes.

Note: the best tool to use to image the old disk is Disk2VHD. However while current Disk2VHD downloads include what claims to be ARM64, x86 and amd64 versions, in fact the x86 file is garbage. You should use an older version instead: see https://web.archive.org/web/20091101034 ... 56415.aspx. Hopefully this will run on Win2K otherwise you'll have to come up with something else.

Next, VHD is a terrible format. I suggest you convert it to VDI immediately and use the latter instead. CloneVDI will make quick work of the conversion.
Cannobina
Posts: 8
Joined: 27. Apr 2023, 13:58

Re: Move Windows 2000 to VBox

Post by Cannobina »

Wow!
Full qualified answer within 13 minutes!

Thank you mpack.

So CloneVDI (by mpack!) is not able to read the physical harddrive direct and convert it to VDI ?
I thought
Reads VDI,VHD,VHDX,VMDK,Parallels HDD,RAW files and physical drives, writes VDI
means direct access to the drive. Why do I need Disk2VHD ?
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Move Windows 2000 to VBox

Post by mpack »

Yes, you can use CloneVDI to read a physical disk to VDI - see the readme PDF in the CloneVDI article. And make sure to enable the "Compact" option.

I would not recommend CloneVDI for this use by beginners, but if you are not a beginner then have at it...
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Move Windows 2000 to VBox

Post by scottgus1 »

And keep in mind that it would be hard to run MergeIDE on the non-running hard drive, whereas it's rather easier when the old OS is booted and running.
Cannobina
Posts: 8
Joined: 27. Apr 2023, 13:58

Re: Move Windows 2000 to VBox

Post by Cannobina »

scottgus1 wrote:And keep in mind that it would be hard to run MergeIDE on the non-running hard drive
That should not be the problem because I have several running physical clones from this notebook and they are all alive. I will run MergeIDE on the ancient system when it is alive just before shutdown and if needed I can do several trials.

BTW: The new Thinkpad P1 is equipped with Intel i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD
Cannobina
Posts: 8
Joined: 27. Apr 2023, 13:58

[Done] Move Windows 2000 to VBox

Post by Cannobina »

Mission accomplished!

It was not easy going but finally every thing works fine.
It took me as a newbie to virtualization around 20-30 hours to get the job done. Including research about the right way to proceed, and double the installation for safety reasons and redundancy.

The funny thing is that there was no need for P2V, VBoxManage, Disk2VHD or CloneVDI at all.

As long as your source-system is alive and you find the built-in backup utility ntbackup.exe in your Windows edition, you can take this to migrate the full system to the virtual target.

This should be true for WinNT, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Vista and Server 2008. And it is true and now proven for Windows 2000 SP4.

And these are the steps that have to be taken:

- Go to the life system Windows 2000 and prepare it for the next boot with merge_ide.reg to advice Windows to drop all settings of current harddisk driver and graphics (https://www.virtualbox.org/raw-attachme ... rgeIDE.zip).
- Special for SP4: Replace all „C:\....i386\Driver.cab“ with „sp4.cab“ in the batch file.
- Stop all programs and services that are not needed.
- Make a backup of the running system Windows 2000 with Windows backup utility ntbackup.exe. Save system state and drive C: and store it somewhere (USB stick).

- Create a new virtual system in VBox and install a plain Windows 2000 from original CD or from an ISO-install found online (http://www.archive.org).
- Install guest additions to have access to a shared drive.
- Load the backup file *.bkf from your storage to the shared drive.
- Stop all programs and services in the VM that are not needed.
- Restore old system settings from *.bkf via Windows restore utility ntbackup.exe. Select all and override all.
- Restart.
- Install guest additions again. Ignore warnings about unsigned drivers and running VBoxService.exe.
- Restart again.
- Done.

See attached documentation of the whole process (... if somebody allows me to upload PDF or ZIP of 780 kB)
Last edited by Cannobina on 6. May 2023, 19:35, edited 1 time in total.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: [Done] Move Windows 2000 to VBox

Post by mpack »

Your method is inferior to the one you were advised to use. I can't see any reason to prefer your method unless you just happen to be ultra comfortable with "ntbackup" (and even then...).
Cannobina wrote: The funny thing is that there was no need for P2V, VBoxManage, Disk2VHD or CloneVDI at all.
You didn't avoid P2V. P2V means a "Physical to Virtual" migration, and that is precisely what you did.

As to the method. You have to be a real masochist to prefer Windows backup and restore to a direct Disk2VHD physical --> VHD solution (or even CloneVDI physical --> VDI). Yes, doing it with any normal backup tool is possible, but involves a lot more disk space, unnecessary copying, and time. And I would not have chosen the long discontinued Windows Backup in any case.
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