virtualbox.org

Hi all,

Host - Ubuntu 20.04
Guest - Win 10 Home 64 bit

I have installed Epson Perfection 3490 Photo Scanner on Win 10 guest. Scanning is of no problem.

Now I'm prepared cloning it on a SSD as OS to be installed on another PC. Advice would be appreciated.

Thanks and regards

VM cloning is a standard feature of the UI. See section 1.13 of the user manual. If copying to another host then you can simply copy the VM folder as I'm sure you've done before: read Howto: Move a VM.

I admit that I'm puzzled. Is "Satimis" a shared user account? I ask because there has been a burst of really basic questions lately, which is rather unusual on an account with almost 400 posts.

Hi mpack,

Thanks for your advice.

In the past I have done cloning guests/vms many times without failure. The cloned guests were imported to a PC with VirtualBox running.

Now I don't have VirtualBox installed on the SSD which is without any packages installed. The cloned Win 10 guest will be imported/migrated to the SSD as OS. This is my first time doing it in this way.

Regards

If you talk about cloning in the VirtualBox context I'm going to reasonably assume that you're talking about the VirtualBox cloning feature. Are you in fact talking about a V2P (virtual to physical) migration?

If yes then do yourself a favor: download the free edition of Macrium Reflect and install it inside the Windows 10 VM. Next thing to do is to use the function that Macrium provides to prepare a rescue USB stick, i.e. one that is bootable and which contains the restore function (this can be done on any Windows PC, not necessarily this VM). Then use Macrium in the VM to image the VM hard disk to a network drive or USB drive. Then all you need to do is boot the target PC from the USB stick, and if it doesn't auto-run, run the Macrium Restore app. At some point Macrium will ask you to point it at the image you created earlier. That image can be on another USB drive (the same one you booted from if it's large enough), or on a network drive.

Another possibility is to attach a large USB 3.1 SSD directly to the VM as a second drive, and use the Macrium Reflect "clone" function to copy the VM disk directly to the SSD, avoiding the need for intermediate images. However there's a danger in this when the hardware is radically different - as a VM is going to be radically different from any physical PC. This feature is best used when you just bought a new larger SSD and intend to use it in the same PC. If you use the method from the previous paragraph then the Macrium Restore app is smart enough to fix a number of compatibility issues, e.g. moving an MBR image to EFI, or vice versa.

You should also have a Windows 10 setup ISO or USB stick on hand in Windows needs to install new network drivers in order to get Internet access. Once it has those it should be able to find other hardware drivers on the Internet.

Incidentally, Windows 10 will lose activation, I assume you know that. Whether or not you can reactivate with the same product key I don't know - that's a question for Microsoft.

Yes, you're right. I was talking V2P. I never tried it before and want to experience the steps.

After going through your advice. It still needs creating a bootable USB, stick not cloning Win 10 home direct on the SSD. Then the SSD can be connected in another PC for immediate operation.

In this way I think it would be more straighforwards creating a bootable Win 10 home USB stick. I have Win 10 home ISO in hard-drive. It is 2016 version if I recall correctly. I need to buy a new USB stick of size 10G.

Thanks again for your advice and time spent.

Regards

satimis wrote:I need to buy a new USB stick of size 10G.

I advise paying a little more and getting a USB 3.1 SSD: not a USB flash drive as those are notoriously unreliable if you tackle writes of this size. If you can't afford the SSD then I've had good results with the Samsung USB FIT Plus. Unlike many (i.e. definitely do not buy a SanDisk Ultra Fits), the Samsung devices rarely overheat or slow down to a crawl when their buffer fills.

Sorry, I haven't explained clear in my previous posting. I'm going to buy an USB flash stick for creating a bootable Win 10 USB from Win 10 home ISO by following below URL;

How to Create a Bootable Windows 10 USB in Linux
https://itsfoss.com/bootable-windows-usb-linux/

not to perform V2P.

I have several spare SATA 120G SSDs which I'll use building a Win 10 home PC.

Regards

Virtualbox will only boot from USB if you use the EFI boot arrangement in the VM, not the BIOS boot arrangement. The WIndows Media Creation Tool also makes ISO files, which can work with Virtualbox's EFI and BIOS in the VM's CD drive. So you really don't need to buy anything.

satimis wrote:Yes, you're right. I was talking V2P. I never tried it before and want to experience the steps.

satimis wrote:I'm going to buy an USB flash stick for creating a bootable Win 10 USB....not to perform V2P.

Please clarify just what you are doing. These are two very different subjects, see "One issue per thread".

He isn't planning to boot a VM from USB. The USB boot is for the target, physical PC in a V2P procedure.

mpack wrote:He isn't planning to boot a VM from USB. The USB boot is for the target, physical PC in a V2P procedure.

You're right. Sorry, I mistakenly thought that I can directly migrate a VM on a SSD and then run it as hard drive of a PC.

satimis wrote:Sorry, I mistakenly thought that I can directly migrate a VM on a SSD and then run it as hard drive of a PC.

There's nothing very wrong with that idea, provided the disk image is compatible with the new hardware. It may not be compatible (depends on the BIOS) if, say, the VM uses an MBR BIOS and the target PC uses EFI. That's why I described the Macrium route.