I'm new here.
I'm currently running win 10 pro pc and I have a SATA hard drive from my win 7 pro old laptop. Does anyone have the virtual box setup procedure so I can run my win7 pro software while using my WIN 10 operating system ?
Thanks in advance
Setup procedure for Win 7 virtual machine
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BillG
- Volunteer
- Posts: 5106
- Joined: 19. Sep 2009, 04:44
- Primary OS: MS Windows 10
- VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
- Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
- Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: Setup procedure for Win 7 virtual machine
It's not a matter of just setting it up. VirtualBox does not use a physical drive. It uses a virtual disk drive, which is simply a file in the host's file system. A major advantage of a vm is that it can easily be moved from one host to another, which is only possible if its disk drive is just another file in the folder holding the files which make up the vm.
To convert a physical machine to a virtual one, commonly called a p2v, you need to convert the physical disk to a virtual one. For Windows, the best solution is disk2vhd, a program from Windows Sysinternals. Make sure you set the option to create a .vhd, not .vhdx (which is the default setting these days).
Once you have a .vhd of your old system disk, you can create a new Windows 7 virtual machine in VirtualBox, using the option to use an existing hard disk file. Try to make the vm look as much like your old PC as possible, especially do not select 32-bit if your PC was 64. If you are lucky, the vm will boot up and load the drivers it needs for the new "hardware" VirtualBox emulates.
Good luck!
To convert a physical machine to a virtual one, commonly called a p2v, you need to convert the physical disk to a virtual one. For Windows, the best solution is disk2vhd, a program from Windows Sysinternals. Make sure you set the option to create a .vhd, not .vhdx (which is the default setting these days).
Once you have a .vhd of your old system disk, you can create a new Windows 7 virtual machine in VirtualBox, using the option to use an existing hard disk file. Try to make the vm look as much like your old PC as possible, especially do not select 32-bit if your PC was 64. If you are lucky, the vm will boot up and load the drivers it needs for the new "hardware" VirtualBox emulates.
Good luck!
Bill