USB Passthrough Can I collect data through a physical usb

[mpooley]

HI
I need to copy a physical machine to a VM.
The physical machine collects electrical data through a usb to port adapter.

simply put
Will I be able to plug this adapter into the host PC and pass the data to the VM ?

Is this possible please?


Thanks

Mike

[socratis]

I don't think that anyone can give you a certain answer for that question. Only if you try it you'll know for sure. You can convert your Physical machine to Virtual (P2V) and try it out, before retiring your physical machine. Simple, no?

You posted on the Windows Guests section. Does that mean that your physical machine is Windows? If so, look at Disk2VHD from Microsoft. That allows you to create a VHD file from your physical machine. Because this is fragile as a format, you should convert that to VDI. Then build a VM around that VDI that matches as close as possible your original machine. Then try out if your setup works in a VM.

[mpooley]

Thanks
At the moment I'm trying to recreate the Win7 machine on a win10 host using a Macrium reflect image.
It's going slow because this is the first time I've ever tried this.

I'm trying to do it because the win7 PC has been running this task for over 6 years 24/7 now and I'm beginning to worry about hardware failure.
If I have a VM I can transfer it quickly in an emergency.... I hope:)

Mike

[mpooley]

I'm stuck at the moment on restoring the image, I've read some tutorials and got as far as booting into the Macrium recovery usb
I then have to select the image I want to restore but I cant connect to the drive where it's stored?

How do I get round this please?

[socratis]

Restoring the image where exactly? You realize we're not dealing with Macrium, right?

[mpooley]

No Macrium is not the problem,
I have created awin 7 virtual box VM and now I want to restore an image to it.
Macrium can then do a restore to dissimilar hardware. That is the theory anyway.

I'm following instructions from a tutorial but it doesn't mention that once I have booted into the VM with Macrium I have to find the image.
But I can't connect to the network and I have no way to connect to an image stored in a hard drive on the host.
I know I am being stupid but I have not had much experience with VMs.

[socratis]

I can't connect to the network and I have no way to connect to an image stored in a hard drive on the host.

Well, you need to create a network connection between the VM and the rest of the network. The default Network settings of "NAT" allows easy access to the Internet, but not to the local network; that's not what you want.

Just so that we're in the same page, read the beginning of ch. 6.2. Introduction to networking modes (or in your PDF), especially the table at the end of it (it's a page long, read it all). What you want is "Bridged" mode. That will make your VM appear as another computer on your local network. After that, either by networking or standard Windows sharing you can locate your image.

So you will go to VM Settings » Network » Adapter 1 » Attached to: Bridged

[mpooley]

Thanks I have managed to install a fresh win 7 in the VM and I can now connect to the network fine.

Now my trouble probably is with macrium because if I boot into the recovery drive the network doesn't allow me to connect to my main pc .
I can see it but not get into it.

I will ask in the macrium forum to see if anyone can help there.

thanks again

Mike