Creating a VM from a computer backup

[jmedley]

This is probably an off the wall question but ... I had an old Windows XP 32 bit machine that died sometime back. I have a good backup, using Retrospect, of the machine and I could restore to another machine, but I thought, can I just make a Virtual Machine of/from that backup? Is this possible?

Thanks,
Jim

[noteirak]

Is the backup a disk image? or just a copy of files?

[jmedley]

Just copy of files, all files. I tried restoring to an external drive, then taking that folder and making a disk image, but I got this error message ...

Failed to open the optical disk file /Users/jmedley/Desktop/Windows XP/Windows XP.dmg.

Could not get the storage format of the medium '/Users/jmedley/Desktop/Windows XP/Windows XP.dmg' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Result Code: VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80BB0005)
Component: Medium
Interface: IMedium {05f2bbb6-a3a6-4fb9-9b49-6d0dda7142ac}
Callee: IVirtualBox {fafa4e17-1ee2-4905-a10e-fe7c18bf5554}
Callee RC: VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80BB0001)

[mpack]

If Retrospect comes with a disaster recovery CD that would allow you to "recover" the backup onto a completely new PC, then yes, you could "recover" it into a VM instead.

Here is a link to an old thread of mine where I discussed a similar project using an Acronis backup.

Bear in mind that the VM hardware will be all wrong, the VM is likely to crash on boot at first. The installation can then often be "Repaired" using your original XP setup CD.


If the backup is just a collection of files then it isn't any good for a VM, and in fact it isn't much use as a PC backup either, since it can only be "restored" onto an already mostly working PC.

[ChipMcK]

Just copy of files, all files. I tried restoring to an external drive, then taking that folder and making a disk image, but ...

What kind of disk image format? Should be DVD/CD master, which creates an ISO image.
Do note that by itself this format does not make the cd/dvd bootable.

[jmedley]

Success. Thanks for yaws advice. I had to make a new VM using the XP installation disk (make sure the size of the VM will accommodate the backup) . I then downloaded and installed Retrospect Client on the VM. Then from the Retrospect Server I selected my backup to restore and the XP VM as the destination and did the restore volume. After restoration, I had to start the VM from the XP installation disk and do a repair installation of the OS. Seems to be working. Thanks!

[mpack]

That's a bit ambiguous! Your first step of creating a new VM from an "XP installation disk" would be enough to give you a VM that's "working". Are you saying that following this procedure got all your previously installed XP applications to a working state?

[Martin]

The thread topic is about restoring a complete system backup into a VM.
Many backup tools need a plain Windows installation as base for a "bare metal restore".
You install Windows, then the Backup/Restore Application and then restore your system backup.

[jmedley]

You know, I did see all the applications, but I didn't try any of them. I was mainly going for the user accounts and a more updated version of XP than the sp 2 that I had a copy of. Not sure I got that after having to do the repair installation. Back to work on Monday and I'll take a look.