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newman314
Contributor
Contributor

How to convert laptop drive (with a dead laptop) for use as VMware image?

I have a windows laptop that recently died (dead motherboard). It being a 7 year old laptop, I decided to give Apple a try this time around and try to use VMware to access my old data if necessary.

In order to do this, I need to convert the physical drive to a VMware image. Googling around, it looks like I might be able to use VMware Convertor to do this.

My original intent was to plug the laptop drive into my windows desktop via an external USB enclosure and create the image that way. However, upon further investigation, it looks like VMware Converter only supports converting a local machine (the desktop) or a remote machine (via IP) but not a laptop drive plugged into the local machine.

So with that in mind, I'm looking for suggestions and help on how to convert this laptop drive into something I can use on my new Macbook Pro.

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newman314
Contributor
Contributor

To restate, I need a way to create a VMDK file from the laptop drive now sitting in an external drive enclosure so that I can use fusion with it.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

put the disk in a USB-case and use that from your Windows system

1. create new VM

2. add physical disk and assign the USB-disk - name it "physical.vmdk"

3. with vmware-vdiskmanager.exe convert the disk into a virtual one

vmware-vdiskmanager -r "physical.vmdk" -t 0 "virtual.vmdk"

4. with virtual hardware editor : remove "physical.vmdk" and add "virtual.vmdk"

5. run Converter and use "configure machine" option - point to the new VM

6. now you can test the VM

I have explained the procedure in more depth in the Converter-section

look here for example

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/243885?tstart=50




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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

Unfortunately Fusion is not as featured as Server/Workstation so the only physical partition accessible is a Boot Camp one, not those on external USB drives. You can however using an existing Windows virtual machine, directly connect the USB to the virtual machine. If you run VMware Converter from this Windows VM you're using it to access the drive from the dead laptop and you should be able to convert the external drive to a regular Fusion virtual machine. You can use Shared Folders to write the capture through to the host drive.

Or you can create an empty IDE virtual hard disk, of equal or larger size than your laptop drive, and use any bootable cloning software you want (Clonezilla bootable LiveCD is free) to migrate the filesystem from the usb drive to that virtual hard disk. The scenario is:

Bootable LiveCD with cloning software

Empty virtual hard disk of equal or greater size

USB drive plugged and connected (via Virtual Machines > USB > (drive name) > Connect).

Boot and clone

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

newman said he has a Windows desktop - so its easiest to do the import there - then he can still copy the result to his Mac




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

newman said he has a Windows desktop - so its easiest to do the import there - then he can still copy the result to his

It could be our different interpretation but he had a Windows laptop that is now dead. The only working machine appears to be a Mac, of course if also has a working PC, then more options are available, such as running Converter on that machine. A third option could be to convert from a Boot Camp partition with Windows installed, which is just like having a PC.

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WoodyZ
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newman said he has a Windows desktop - so its easiest to do the import there - then he can still copy the result to his

It could be our different interpretation but he had a Windows laptop that is now dead. The only working machine appears to be a Mac,

As I read it the OP clearly states he/she has both a Windows Desktop and a MacBook Pro which replaces the dead Laptop from which he/she wants to use the HDD from the dead Laptop to, what I'd logically assume is to, make a Virtual Machine out of that can be used under VMware Fusion.

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

As I read it the OP clearly states he/she has both a Windows Desktop and a MacBook Pro which replaces the dead Laptop from which he/she wants to use the HDD from the dead Laptop to, what I'd logically assume is to, make a Virtual Machine out of that can be used under VMware Fusion.

Yep, I got it now. Either way the poster has options to avoid the copy to their Mac after conversion by importing on the Mac.

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newman314
Contributor
Contributor

woodyz,

that's correct. i have

windows xp laptop - dead, drive still working

windows xp desktop - working

macbook pro - working, actually showing up next week (just ordered)

continuum,

i plan on getting only vmware fusion. does it contain vmware-vdiskmanager? i can't seem to locate vmware-vdiskmanager as a standalone downloader utility.

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newman314
Contributor
Contributor

rcardona2k,

good idea with trying it as a shared folder.

however, there is a slight wrinkle. my laptop drive is partitioned as follows

c:\ - OS

d:\ - user data, documents and settings

e:\ - PAGE

if I try to access things via sharing using convertor, will that not only make one folder/partition accessible?

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Hi

on Windows you can download the Workstation trial - it comes with vmware-vdiskmanager.

If you don't want to buy Workstation - you can continue to use the trial after 30 days - only the Workstation GUI expires - VMplayer will still work




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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newman314
Contributor
Contributor

continuum,

Thanks for the tip. Following your instructions, I created a new blank VM image with no os and PhysicalDrive2 linked (how do you tell which drive is which? I just guessed. I have c:\ which is one disk, d:\ which is the second and the laptop drive which is plugged in via usb)

However, upon trying to run vmware-vdiskmanager, I get the error:

Failed to convert disk: The file already exists (0xc)

Obviously the source vmdk (raw.vmdk) exists but the target does not.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Attached is a screenshot...

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

to find out which disk you need first click "use partitions only" - then a popup will open where you can select partitions - this should tell you if you selected the right one. Once you know this - cancel and click "use full disk"

file exists ... are you sure that the destination disk is not already there - maybe from a failed attempt ? - try different filename




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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newman314
Contributor
Contributor

continuum,

Looks like what I had to do was to reboot my desktop. After that, it seems to have started the copy. Now I just need to make sure things boot.

On a related question, is there a way to shrink a partition on the virtual disk (it has 3 partitions C:, 😧 and P:) I have a page partition set up to be 2GB in size but figure I could dial it back to 1GB just to save some space as I will be carrying this VM around with me on my laptop and want to only use it occasionally for reference. Thanks.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

if you use growing type of disks this little bit of wasted space will not matter

if you really want to reduce the size of that partition the easiest way may be to use ghost and clone that vmdk into a new one while resizing on the fly|

honestly I don't think it is worth the effort






___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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newman314
Contributor
Contributor

continuum,

I used -t 0 which as I understand it to be a growing disk option. What is odd is that the raw.vmdk shows up at around 80GB (which is the size of the drive) instead of the approximate 40GB which is the actual used space on the drive.

As an additional data point, I had actually run VMWare Convertor on my laptop last year (while it was still working) and that generated an image of about 37GB which is more in line with what I was expecting so I'm not sure if I'm somehow passing the wrong params to VMWare Workstation/Convertor to only use the minimum necessary space instead of preallocing all the space.

The conversion is running now and will finish in a couple hours (to the NAS as I am out of space locally). Will report back with the final size.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

once you have the vmdk - shrink it.

That will reduce the size to slightly more than the actual used space




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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