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Re: Copy Windows 10 VM to physical hard disk

Posted: 7. Sep 2020, 19:43
by spiri
Thank you so far for all the messages :)
scottgus1 wrote:You want to have Windows 10 dual-boot with your existing Arch Linux on your computer.
I don't care about my Arch Linux for this moment. I just want to install Windows. I can, indeed, install Arch Linux afterwards on this disk.

Again, I need to install Windows 10 on physical disk, but my Windows 10 Installation "CD" (it's an external SSD) does not work.

I created the Windows 10 Installation Media with the following package which is working for VirtualBox: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/windows2usb/
Its windows2usb. It worked perfectly for my virtual machine, but not on bare metal with an external SSD.

Since I cannot install Windows directly on bare metal (for whatever reason) I want to make V2P.

dd is yet another, though working method to solve this problem, though some things may be a bit corrupt, which can certainly be fixed.
I would resync my physical HD with fdisk.

mpack suggested to use Macrium Reflect Free but there is no option redeploying an existing VM (the rescue image I created with Macrium) to new hardware without a license.

There is no other bootable option for Macrium Reflect. Macrium creates file data with .mrimg extensions, which is not bootable.

However I will try to find a double-layered disk and just burn the Windows Installation Media on this disk. Maybe it's working.

I will try at least the approach with dd to see what it does.

EDIT: I wasn't trying it out after all because I'm working on my physical home drive and everything costs a lot of time to reinstall things and I just wanted to be sure if it's working when I dd myself to the right path.

Thank you nevertheless for the response.

Re: Copy Windows 10 VM to physical hard disk

Posted: 7. Sep 2020, 19:58
by scottgus1
If you no longer care to have Arch Linux on the computer:
spiri wrote:I don't care about my Arch Linux for this moment.
Then you can wipe the PC's disk and install Windows directly with a DVD containing the install media or a USB stick (probably not a USB SSD drive) with the bootable media on the USB stick. Leave a portion of the disk unpartitioned for a Linux OS too. Installing Linux dual-boot after Windows is well-known and does not require Virtualbox.

Microsoft will let you download a Windows 10 install ISO in your Linux OS to burn to a DVD if you re using a computer that cannot run the Windows Media Creation Tool.

Macrium makes a bootable ISO that can be burned to a DVD or USB stick, then you use the CD or DVD to start the destination PC and restore the .mrimg file.

Macrium Redeploy is a pay-for option. Default free Macrium will restore mrimg's from any disk to any disk (as long as there's enough space for the data).

Frankly, I think you should forget about trying to get the installed Windows OS out of the Virtualbox VM and onto the physical disk. With the trouble you're having trying to find Macrium's boot ISO, you'll find that migrating the Windows OS is like going from the United States to Mexico by traveling north through Canada. it can be done and is fairly easy but one really needs to know what one is doing.

Instead figure out/fix being able to boot your physical PC from install media. Install Windows fresh, leave space for Linux, then install Linux. Click Click Boom. 8)

Re: Copy Windows 10 VM to physical hard disk

Posted: 7. Sep 2020, 20:26
by spiri
Oh ok i will try to emulate this in a VM.

Re: Copy Windows 10 VM to physical hard disk

Posted: 7. Sep 2020, 21:11
by spiri
Oh ok I was to dumb to select an mrimg image from an ntfs-formatted filesystem within this bootable CD.

The conversion is working from V2V.

I will keep you informed when i deploy the system on bare metal.

Re: Copy Windows 10 VM to physical hard disk

Posted: 12. Sep 2020, 21:21
by spiri
I successfully installed Arch Linux alongside Windows 10.

I used Macrium Reflect Free twice to first restore the Windows image to disk.

First time did not work, maybe because Secure Boot was disabled.

After enabling Secure Boot i wasn't even able to boot Windows.

After deploying the image again to disk (with Secure Boot enabled) did the trick.

Then I installed Arch Linux the normal way alongside Windows 10.

However nothing is running in EFI but I don't care. I don't even know the benefits of it.

Now I'm full-upgraded. Thanks again for the help.

Re: Copy Windows 10 VM to physical hard disk

Posted: 13. Sep 2020, 16:41
by scottgus1
Great! Glad you kept up the hunt and found a solution!