How To Perform Windows P2V using Disk2Vhd for VirtualBox
As with a previous article on creating a P2v for use by VirtualBox using VMware’s vCenter Converter for Windows, we will continue and describe how to complete the task using Microsoft’s Disk2Vhd (SysInternal Suite).
What is Disk2Vhd?
Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk – Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk different than ones being converted).
Download Disk2Vhd from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415
Create VHD
Run Disk2Vhd tool on a physical machine , you wish to convert to virtual . This tool list the all available drives on a system and the required disk space for storing virtual disk (VHD).
After selecting the required options , select Create
Now that the VHD file is created , we will copy the result VHD and copy it to the machine where VirtualBox is running.
Create new VM in VirtualBox ( Machine->New ). In the “Create New Virtual Machine” dialog, enter name and select OS. In this case my build system was in Windows 7 , I selected the same.
Select Next and provide memory for new VM.
Select Next. In this dialog un-check “Start-up Disk” option. This allows us to attach existing VHD to VM instance.
Select Next , Following warning message is show, click “Continue”
Select Next,
This will complete the creation of new Virtual machine. But still we have not configured it to use VHD file got from the P2V conversion.
From the VirtualBox Manager select the newly created VM ( win7) from the pane and select “Settings” options , as shown below.
In “Settings” dialog select “Storage” option on the left pane and click “+” button on IDE controller to add existing VHD . Once this option is select VirtualBox brings up dialog to choose existing disk.
Once VHD is selected, you can modify other settings such as memory, processors and video memory from this dialog.
Now Virtual machine creation is complete , you can stat the VM, you have replica of your physical setup inside VM.
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