Create Windows virtual machine using virtual disk created from physical disk (image)?

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Ernie Pantuso
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Joined: 19. Mar 2020, 20:01

Create Windows virtual machine using virtual disk created from physical disk (image)?

Post by Ernie Pantuso »

I have a client who has a physical XP machine (which is, needless to say, quite old) which is dedicated to a single, specific purpose and uses software that is no longer available. (The company no longer exists/the author is no longer alive.) The software was written such that it’s very sensitive to the machine’s hardware configuration and efforts to move it to another machine have consistently failed.

My client is desperate to preserve this software/functionality and it occurred to me that, if we create an image of the system hard drive, and somehow tell VirtualBox to use that image as the virtual hard disk, maybe that will work — but I can’t seem to find anything on how to go about that in VirtualBox.

Has anyone out there done this? Any suggestions as to how I should approach it? Can I simply create an ISO file and rename it to .vdi or .vhd or .vmdk ? (Is there a particular format that’s more likely to work?)
scottgus1
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Primary OS: MS Windows 10
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Re: Create Windows virtual machine using virtual disk created from physical disk (image)?

Post by scottgus1 »

Yes, it's called P2V for Physical to Virtual. Many have done it. See https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows

Specially note the "MergeIDE" step #1, and match the processor count in Virtualbox to the number of CPU graphs in the XP task manager.

Also google:

XP P2V site:forums.virtualbox.org

Disk2VHD provides a VHD copy of XP. Use Mpack's CloneVDI to make a VDI file, which is more robust than the VHD. Build the VM using the VDI as the virtual disk.
Ernie Pantuso wrote:The software was written such that it’s very sensitive to the machine’s hardware configuration
It is highly likely that Virtualbox provides different hardware than the physical PC. You can match the Virtualbox network card MAC address to the existing PC's network card, and run DMIdecode (http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/dmidecode.htm) to match BIOS codes. If the software is too sensitive you might be dead in the water. Only way to know if it will work is to try it.
Ernie Pantuso
Posts: 3
Joined: 19. Mar 2020, 20:01

Re: Create Windows virtual machine using virtual disk created from physical disk (image)?

Post by Ernie Pantuso »

I need to ask a follow-up question but first I should provide some additional info...

The software I'm dealing with is a plugin for AutoCAD. It doesn't run in newer versions of AutoCAD so this XP machine has AutoCAD 2007 installed. The plugin, as I said, is no longer being developed (the developer passed away) and it doesn't want to run anymore - but if you set the system clock back, it works OK. The real pain in the neck, here, is AutoCAD.

I didn't want to risk screwing anything up, so I cloned the original drive and I'm only making changes to the clone. Interestingly, after the clone operation, I put the clone in the machine and fired up AutoCAD to test it. It won't launch. It knows there's a different drive and it won't launch. How does it know that? What might it be looking for? Can I duplicate the information to the VHD? If so, where do I *FIND* the info? (XP isn't very revealing of detailed info.) Perhaps even more importantly, what are the chances that it's looking at the disk's physical parameters (heads, sectors, etc.)? The physical system drive is a 500GB drive (only about 50GB is used). There's not enough space on his new system drive (500GB SSD) for a virtual drive file that big.
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