Migrating to new physical disk

[BuddyT]

Hi, all. I'm new to virtual machines and I have a question for the community...

I have a Windows 10 host with a Linux VM under VirtualBox. I need to change out the hard drive of my host machine. Normally I'd just use Windows to make a system image of my disk then use its Restore function to reconstruct my machine on the new hard drive. So my question is, will Windows System Image and Restore include my VM configuration?

Thanks in advance.

[socratis]

That's more of a question about that specific Windows capability to be honest. The only thing required for a VM is simply that your backup/restore program copies and restores files correctly. The VM and its configuration is a set of files, no registry keys on anything like that.

See the article "Moving a VM" and interpret it as "Backing up a VM[/url]".

[BuddyT]

Yes, you are correct. I was basically asking if the Windows Backup and Restore would back my entire HDD with a system image or only the Windows bits. After some further research, it appears that only the Windows bits are handled. But thank you for the article. That pretty much covers my question of how to back up my VM so it can be restored on my new HDD.

[TechnoMax]

If you want to play safe in case of a backup and restore situation I would not use Windows but rather take a dedicated backup programm. I used the top free programms Macrium Reflect and AOMEI Backupper quite a lot and never had any problems. If you choose system backup as the method to be used, all partitions neccessary for Windows are backuped up. This assures that you can boot from the new disk the same way as you did with the old one. And VirtualBox definitively can run its VMs as before.