VMware Cloud Community
notthatotherguy
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-01-2022 09:50 PM

extract a VM to a real pc

I would like to extract a VM from a virtual hard drive to a usb drive so that the usb drive can boot what was the VM.

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5 Replies
notthatotherguy
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-01-2022 09:51 PM

basically i have been using a VM server for yeas that i would like to put on another computer with out rebuilding it from scratch.

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee
‎07-02-2022 12:21 AM

To run as a VM on the other system, or for that system to boot the OS directly?

 


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alantz
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎07-02-2022 07:36 AM

Maybe a Windows Live USB that has VMWare workstation player installed on it ?

--Alan--

 

 

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal
‎07-02-2022 07:40 AM

Boot from a SCSI-disk is a completely different story than booting off a USB-disk.
With a Linux guest it may even work - but for Windows it is a  non-trivial task.
The transfer is actually the easiest part of the job :
dd  if=flat.vmdk of=/dev/sdx bs=1M conv=notrunc ### (/dev/sdx represents the USB-disk.
Use a Linux to do that ...

Ulli

 


________________________________________________
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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notthatotherguy
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-03-2022 09:56 PM

the VM is running centos and it is my plex and file server amoung other things. and i just am hoping i can be able to copy the container that is the virtual hard drive to a USB NVME drive and have it boot. I want to stop using my Dell Power Edge R410 as a Host server and put my Plex server on a Up Core Plus to save power as this is just something in my home.  trying to cut down on my power bill as costs are going up.

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