Migrate from Parallels 11 to VirtualBox 6.0

[jpgalvin]

I want to migrate a Windows 10 VM that's running on Parallels 11 on Mac OS 10.14.3 to VirtualBox 6.0 and have found conflicting information online. Does anyone have clear, definitive instructions on how I can get this accomplished?

[socratis]

I do *not* have Parallels, but let's try and work out a solution. As far as I know, and from the manual ch. 5.2. Disk Image Files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD):

HDD. Image files of Parallels version 2 (HDD format) are also supported.
Due to lack of documentation of the format, newer versions such as 3 and 4 are not sup- ported. You can however convert such image files to version 2 format using tools provided by Parallels.

I'm not sure what those Parallels tools the manual is referring to are.

Does Parallels offer any "export" functionality? To an OVA or an OVF? That would be another way to easily migrate your Parallels VM.

[okiuss]

1 - Clone the Parallels VM from Paralles GUI
2 - Start the cloned VM within Parallels
3 - Reinstall the Parallels Tools and do NOT restart
4 - Within the Parallels VM copy the Parallels Tools installer

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    e.g: cp /private/tmp/PrlToolsPackages/prl_tools.iso /Users/<username>/Desktop

5 - Open the ISO on the desktop and deinstall the Parallels Tools
6 - Shutdown the Parallels VM
7 - Locate and convert the virtual disk to raw format
Example:

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    prl_disk_tool convert --plain --hdd /Users/ok/Parallels/HighSierra4VirtualBox.pvm/macOSxxxxx-0.hdd

8 - Locate and check the created virtual disk
Example:

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    file  /Users/ok/Parallels/HighSierra4VirtualBox.pvm/macOSxxxxx-0.hdd/macOSxxxxx-0.hdd.copy.0.\{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41\}.hds

... shows something like: DOS/MBR boot sector; partition 1 : ID=0xee, start-CHS (0x3ff,254,63), .....
9 - rename this .hds file to .hdd extension
10 - Convert the raw disk image to VirtualBox native VDI format.
Example:

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    VBoxManage clonehd /Users/ok/Parallels/HighSierra4VirtualBox.pvm/macOSxxxxx-0.hdd/macOSxxxxx-0.hdd.copy.0.\{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41\}.hdd HighSierra4VB.vdi --format VDI

11 - Create new virtual machine in VirtualBox WITHOUT any harddisk
12 - Locate the new created machine and move the .vdi file into this folder
13 - Attach the .vdi image to the disk controller (usually SATA)
14 - Start the Vbox VM

[jpgalvin]

Following directions and can't execute step 4 as /private/tmp/PrlToolsPackages doesn't exist. Any ideas?

[zplizzi]

This worked for me to convert a VM from Parallels 15 to VirtualBox 6.1. A few notes:
- if the guest OS is Windows, you can just uninstall the Parallels tools from "add or remove programs", avoiding steps 3-5 of the above instructions
- I kept getting the error "Not enough free space on the physical disk to complete the operation." when trying to convert the parallels disk to "plain" type. This was because my virtual disk was 256GB, even though it was only 40GB on disk. But to convert to plain format it'll take up the full size of the virtual disk, so I had to first shrink the drive. The parallels drive settings (hard disk advanced settings -> properties) would only allow me to grow the drive, not shrink it, until I went into the guest OS and shrunk the main partition and deleted the recovery partition at the end of the drive. After that, I was able to shrink the drive size in Parallels, and then convert.
- you can convert to "plain" format using the parallels GUI instead of command line. Go to the hard disk advanced settings -> properties, then deselect "expanding drive".
- in step 8, the .hds file is actually inside the top-level .hdd file. this wasn't obvious to me initially.
- doing `file mydisk.hds` gave this output with a bunch of errors, but everything still worked:

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disk.hdd: DOS/MBR boot sector MS-MBR Windows 7 english at offset 0x163 "Invalid partition table" at offset 0x17b "Error loading operating system" at offset 0x19a "Missing operating system", disk signature 0x82d6cc97; partition 1 : ID=0x7, active, start-CHS (0x0,32,33), end-CHS (0x2c,190,19), startsector 2048, 716800 sectors; partition 2 : ID=0x7, start-CHS (0x2c,190,19), end-CHS (0x3ff,254,63), startsector 718848, 83167232 sectors

- you can actually boot the .hdd file (the one that you renamed from .hds) directly in VirtualBox. I'm sure there's advantages to converting to VDI though.

[Mr. Truffles]

This worked for me to convert a VM from Parallels 15 to VirtualBox 6.1. A few notes:
- doing `file mydisk.hds` gave this output with a bunch of errors, but everything still worked:

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disk.hdd: DOS/MBR boot sector MS-MBR Windows 7 english at offset 0x163 "Invalid partition table" at offset 0x17b "Error loading operating system" at offset 0x19a "Missing operating system", disk signature 0x82d6cc97; partition 1 : ID=0x7, active, start-CHS (0x0,32,33), end-CHS (0x2c,190,19), startsector 2048, 716800 sectors; partition 2 : ID=0x7, start-CHS (0x2c,190,19), end-CHS (0x3ff,254,63), startsector 718848, 83167232 sectors

- you can actually boot the .hdd file (the one that you renamed from .hds) directly in VirtualBox. I'm sure there's advantages to converting to VDI though.

I also had these errors. I have a Win 10 OS and it also says the following:
hds: DOS/MBR boot sector MS-MBR Windows 7 english at offset 0x163 "Invalid partition table" at offset 0x17b "Error loading operating system" at offset 0x19a "Missing operating system"; partition 1 : ID=0xee, start-CHS (0x0,0,2), end-CHS (0x3ff,254,63), startsector 1, 178257919 sectors
My-MacBook-Pro:Parallels admin$ VBoxManage clonehd "Scalability Demo VM.pvm/Scalability I-0.hdd/ScalabilityMaster.hdd" ScalabilityMaster.vdi --format VDI
0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%
Clone medium created in format 'VDI'.

It won't boot in VirtualBox and the VDI is all that's mounted. I'm stuck.

[fth0]

output with a bunch of errors

FWIW, those are error messages, but no errors.

Each DOS/Windows MBR contains those error messages, and what you are seeing is simply the display of some information contained in the MBR of the virtual disk. The offsets and the texts of the error messages help with identifying which OS created the MBR, being Windows 7 (English) in this case.