VMware Communities: Message List - Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

Re: Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

peterwerner — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:22:49 GMT

Excellent – I'll give that a shot once I've run converter. Thanks!

Re: Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

peterwerner — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:21:16 GMT

I have to go back to my old G4 to do so, but I can run it (albeit slow – the fact that newer Mac run Windows so much better is part of the reason I upgraded). I'll probably run converter on it overnight, in case it takes awhile.

Re: Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

jim.gill — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:16:37 GMT

Sorry, didn't read carefully enough to see you had a VPC6 VM.

Woody's suggestion is the right place to start. The free VMware Converter can be installed in your VPC6 VM and it can beam the VPC VM out into Fusion-compatible format. Then you can pick up on my instructions, after the import step.

Re: Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

jim.gill — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:14:08 GMT

Sure.

Fusion 1.1.3 doesn't expose any UI methods to attach an existing drive to a VM, so we'll do it by editing the vmx file with TextEdit. Here are the steps:

1) Download VMware Importer Beta 2 from http://www.vmware.com/download/fusion/importer_tool.html and import your VM to Fusion format.

2) Your imported VM will go into a folder like Documents/Virtual Machines/MyVPCVM. Its disk will probably be Disk1.vmdk. You need the correct and full name for the path, which might be Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/MyVPCVM.vmwarevm/Disk1.vmdk. It's best to get this from a Terminal window, because the Mac will hide package extensions.

3) Use TextEdit to open the vmx file of your existing Fusion VM (the one you're adding the VPC disk to). Add the following two lines at the bottom:

ide1:1.present = "TRUE"

ide1:1.fileName = "/Users/peterwerner/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/MyVPCVM.vmwarevm/Disk1.vmdk"

being sure to correct my example line with the appropriate full pathname to Disk1.vmdk as it exists on your system.

4) Save the vmx file and quit TextEdit. Start Fusion and start the VM. Your VPC disk will show up as drive E, probably.

(If the path stuff is too complex, you can drag Disk1.vmdk into the original VM's package, and then the line becomes ide1:1.fileName = "Disk1.vmdk" )

Re: Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

WoodyZ — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:02:44 GMT

Can you run the VPC VM? If yes then download and install Converter in the VPC VM and go from there by reading the documentation. VMware Converter 3.0.3 User's Manual

Re: Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

peterwerner — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:51:35 GMT

Yes, actually I would prefer to have the VPC VM readable as a drive. I'm using Fusion 1.1.3. Let me know how to do this.

And I also should mention, its a VPC 6 volume, which is why Importer wasn't an option.

Re: Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

jim.gill — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:38:34 GMT

Peter, you could do this lots of ways.

If you can start the VirtualPC VM on your PPC Mac, I think the simplest method is to copy the files onto a USB key or external drive and then plug it into your Intel box.

If you can't do that, you can import the VPC VM into Fusion -- If you are using Fusion 2.0 beta, this is built-in as File|Import, for Fusion 1.x, get it here: http://www.vmware.com/download/fusion/importer_tool.html and drag/drop the files between VMs. It is possible to run two VMs at once.

If you are feeling more ambitious, it's possible to import the VPC VM and then connect its hard drive to your Fusion VM so it appears as drive D or E. This might involve some editing of the config file if you're using Fusion 1.x. If you want to try this route, let me know and tell me what version of Fusion you have; I'll respond with explicit instructions.

Moving files from Virtual PC or between Virtual Machines

peterwerner — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:07:20 GMT

I have an old Virtual PC setup and I want to move some files and applications over to my Fusion/Boot Camp volume. I've read the best way to do this is to use VMWare Converter to export the VPC install as a Fusion Virtual Machine. However, I still want to keep and use the Fusion/Boot Camp volume I have already set up – I only want to pull some things off of the old VPC volume.

So what I was wondering was 1) whether it was possible for Windows under Fusion to detect the existing VPC volume as a remote volume and get files from it? 2) If I need to use Converter, how do I move files from one virtual machine to another? Do I have to run both at once, if that's even possible?

Thanks in advance,
Peter