How2make a computer backup image that will boot in VBox?

[oraclezius]

I have and old failing computer that I want to backup in such a way that I can boot the image right into Virtualbox. Is this possible? How can I do this?

Thanks!
Oraclezius

[Perryg]

Depends on the OS you are talking about but it is possible. No one can advise the proper approach with no information.

[oraclezius]

There's two actually. One running Windows 8 and one running Windows 7. I think I found what I need unless someone has a better option?

Disk2vhd

(oh it won't let me post URLs cause I'm a new member)

[Perryg]

That will work but be sure to read up on how to prep the system first.

Keep in mind that this will require that you re-activate the OSes.

[mpack]

Moved to "Windows Guests".

Btw, don't get the idea that you can just image the drive and it's guaranteed to work. The "hardware" in the VM will be all wrong, so expect both VMs to need a bit of nursing through the early stages. It should be doable though.

However, as Perry said, both of those Windows images will ask to be reactivated, and assuming the activation is allowed it's likely that you will no longer be able to use the original installations.

[oraclezius]

Hey thanks for the replies!
I ended up using Paragon P2V. I got one working but I'm having trouble with the second one.

The physical machine has two drives. A small 20gb SSD for booting and then a larger SATA disk drive for data. Paragon made images of both of them. I attached them both to the VirtualBox but when I try to start I get this error:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Mom's Windows 7.
Failed to open image '/Volumes/My Passport/Virtual disk 1.vdi' for writing due to wrong permissions (VERR_VD_IMAGE_READ_ONLY).
Failed to attach driver below us! Image is read-only. (VERR_VD_IMAGE_READ_ONLY).
AHCI: Failed to attach drive to Port0 (VERR_VD_IMAGE_READ_ONLY).

Details:
Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {8ab7c520-2442-4b66-8d74-4ff1e195d2b6}

I'm not sure why they would be read-only as I used the same options for the other computer. I tried attaching only the boot drive and I got the same error.

Suggestions?
Thanks for your help!

[Perryg]

You will need to ask paragon.

[mpack]

What filesystem does the MyPassport drive use?

[scottgus1]

Take a look here: "error IMAGE_READ_ONLY on USB-based vdi" viewtopic.php?f=2&t=38007