Trying to convert existing physical XP to a VM on a new host

[vbox4me2]

Only to stick to IDE use/settings for the VM, and try both VM ide values, isn't this fun?

[virgil_machine]

Actually, it is fun.

The VM has SATA settings only, not IDE...there are 3 settings, and I've tried all of them--no difference.

[vbox4me2]

The VM must have IDE settings, if you have had it set to sata all this time it may very well be the reason why it doesn't work, regardless what others might say, the first thing you MUST do/use is set IDE only (do NOT toggle on sata), ide has 2 options as well under general/advanced, PIIX4 and PIIX3. ANY windows installation V or R will be able to boot from ide.

[virgil_machine]

Ah...I was looking at the Hard Disk settings. I played with the general/advanced settings and I'm getting the same result.

I also unchecked the "additional controller" setting. From what I read that should not make a difference--and it doesn't.

I'll keep at this.

[DarryDoo]

Hal.dll (Standard PC)
Halacpi.dll (ACPI HAL)
Halaacpi.dll (ACPI HAL with IO APIC)
If you perform a Windows installation with default settings in VirtualBox, Halacpi.dll will be chosen as VirtualBox enables ACPI by default but disables the IO APIC by default.

I checked windows\system32 on the system I want to virtualize, and only hal.dll is there. Should I be copying halacpi.dll and deleting hal.dll?

Woah, quite the thread.

In re the HAL.DLL file... whichever file you choose to use, it must be named HAL.DLL -- I can't tell if you made that connection?

[virgil_machine]

Yes, I got that. I've been copying the hal.dll from a working vm, but I may try something else.

The thread covers my trials. I still haven't gotten it to work, but I haven't given up.

[tenui]

Any luck yet? I am receiving the same issues... went through pretty much the same process. Still no joy.

[virgil_machine]

I've slowed down on this because I don't expect it to work. Evidently, it will work in some circumstances, but I can't create those circumstances.

My next effort will be to:
go back to the Physical Machine
create a new hardware profile
boot into that
clear everything I can in device manager
run MergeIDE
shut down
clone the PM with Acronis True Image
restore the Acronis PM image to the VM
copy hal.dll, ntoskrnl.exe, and ntknlpa.exe from a working XP VM to the new VM
try to boot the VM
if that doesn't work, boot the VM from the CD, go into recovery console, and copy the registry files (default, security, etc.) from \Windows\Repair to \windows\system32\config

If that doesn't work (and I don't expect it to because I've done all these steps already, just not in one continuous flow) I'm stuck. I think it's down to chipsets at that point.

Good luck.

[tenui]

SUCCESS!

I finally just got it to work... I replaced my hal.dll but did NOT reboot the source. I then took the snapshot using the converter. I did need to put in the product key for windows but that wasn't a big deal. All of the VM hardware was then discovered.

After I rebooted the source PC, it went through the discovery process. It turns out I have a on motherboard RAID controller that I never used and never installed properly in Windows. This controller was not found in the VMPlayer which was causing the crash after mup.sys.

So, the trick for me was replacing the hal.dll and then take the snapshot... I also did not install the VMTools until after... Everything else suggested did not work, ie. merging IDE, registry changes, chkdsk, etc. The trick again was not rebooting after I replaced the hall.dll.

Good luck!

-john

[virgil_machine]

Thank you.

Your terminology (converter, vmplayer) sounds like vmware...are you using vmware or virtualbox?

Also, what processors do you have on the source and host computers?

[virgil_machine]

tenui,

In your PM you said that you are creating a vm on the physical machine you are imaging. Where did you get th hal.dll to restore before imaging?

I'm glad you're successful, but I think this is a different situation (but I'll try).

[virgil_machine]

I was able to create a .vmdk image with VMWare converter, then merge all the 2GB segments into one file with vmware-vdiskmanager. (This is where this whole thread started--I couldn't get that to work on my dual boot machine, but it does wolk on my test machine--XP Home single boot.)

I created a vm in vbox, and booted it. Hangs on Mup.sys. At least I have more stuff to play with...but I'm not getting anywhere.

[virgil_machine]

Meanwhile, I decided to see what VMWare would do with the vmdk I created.

I appears to be fine--got me to the point of Windows activation.

I chose vbox when I thought IBM was going to buy Sun. As an IBM retiree and shareholder that made sense. Now that VMWare apparently works, I may rethink that.

But, since this is a learning exercise, I'd like to get vbox to work.

[virgil_machine]

I was able to activate and run the VM under VMware. There must be some issue with the cd I downloaded from depositfiles.com (I'm not really surprised), because the product key I entered to activate successfully was kicked out as invalid (again) when I tried a repair install of the vbox vm(again). Now I know something else.

I have a new path: go back to the XP Pro machine I started with, see if I can get VMWare converter to work (again). If I can, I'll use the valid XP Pro CD I borrowed to do a repair install.

Another path is to try the replace hal.dll on the XP Home PM and clone before rebooting procedure.

I'll do both. More to come.

At least I got something to work.

[virgil_machine]

Tenui was right.

All I had to do was copy hal.dll from the sp3 cab directory to windows\system32. Then I cloned the system with Acronis and restored it to the vm. I had to activate windows, but that's fine.

That's the XP Home machine. I'm assuming that it will work the same with the XP Pro machine. I'll post results her once I've done that.

Note that none of the other things I tried were necessary (and this is a very long thread). Just replace hal.dll, clone, and restore.