Thanks Woody, for the info. Can I please ask for the other options? I'm a computer consultant with over 20 years of experience so I'm not daunted by lengthy and difficult descriptions and procedures. The existing Windows hard drive has a ton of proprietary apps and and years of stuff on there and the user has a deadline tomorrow to meet so I unfortunately can't even think about starting the system from scratch at this point. That would be my preferred method too, but I have a time crunch so I just need to get this thing up and running ASAP right now. So if someone could please tell me the quickest way to convert this real disk into a virtual disk image, I would be a happy camper. Thanks again.
Jeff
As I said in my reply to what Silica V said in the long run it may just be easier and faster to clean build a native files based Virtual Machine with a Windows OS and then transfer the User Data from the external hard drive to the new Virtual Machine however there are other options and that would be as follows.
I have done this so I know it can work however it is time consuming and requires additional resources other then Fusion and in the end is not always successful all of the time...
Create a Fusion Virtual Machine using the New Virtual Machine Assistant and at the Virtual Hard Disk sheet set the Disk size: to that of the external hard drive and then uncheck the Use Easy Install: check box on the Windows Easy Install sheet. Aside for the fact that this is not going to be a "Windows Easy Install" it also then uses an IDE Virtual Hard Drive vs a SCSI Virtual Hard Drive and while SCSI if faster it also can be harder to do what comes next.
In the next step you can use a commercial product like Symantec's Norton Ghost or you can boot the Virtual Machine with a Linux Live CD/DVD like Knoppix 5.1 and use dd to image the disk.
If you use Ghost you can make the Virtual Hard Drive smaller (or larger) then the actual size when creating the Virtual Machine as Ghost can dynamically resize the partition when restoring from a Ghost Image however if you use dd then the Virtual Hard Disk need to be the same size as the Physical Hard Drive and while it can be larger you should not make it smaller until after you have Windows up and running if you want to.
Anyway I just booted a Virtual Machine, that I created with a 60 GB Virtual Hard Drive to match the 60 GB USB External Hard Drive containing the Windows XP Professional OS, with a Knoppix 5.1 CD ISO Image and attached the External USB Drive to the Virtual Machine while at the Knoppix Boot Screen. Once at the Knoppix Desktop I had two disks showing on the Desktop. One was sda1 and the other was hda1. I checked to see that sda1 was the external drive and it was so I then unmounted it. Next I used the Root Shell (Terminal) from the Penguin menu and used dd to image the disks.
After using dd I exited Knoppix to shutdown the Virtual Machine and disconnected the External USB Hard Drive before the Virtual Machine was completely off but still open ready to start again. I then changed the CD/DVD to point to an ISO Image of the Windows XP CD and boot it and did a Repair Install of Windows to correct the Hardware differences between the System the External Hard Drive came from and the Virtual Hardware of the Virtual Machine.
Once complete the Virtual Machine booted normally and all was working with programs and data without having to reinstall any of the programs although YMMV.
Anyway like I said in the beginning... in the long run it may just be easier and faster to clean build a native files based Virtual Machine with a Windows OS and then transfer the User Data from the external hard drive to the new Virtual Machine.
There are also other methods and software products to accomplish the same thing I just did however I have used both Ghost and dd with success.
I also use Knoppix 5.1 (KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso) from http://www.knoppix.com because it works with VMware Virtual Machine's and will recognize SCSI Virtual Hard Disks without any additional drivers and is free. I also use Ghost however I use that mainly when dealing with P2P not P2V as I normally always clean build my Virtual Machines.
Good Luck and Have Fun! 