Can I copy a VM image to my boot camp partition?

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Hi, I'm new to all this, so go easy on the replies!

I have a new iMac and recently copied my old PC HDD using the converter utility to make an image of it which I then opened in VMWare fusion on the iMac with great success.

Trouble is, I just found out that Firewire devices are not supported (should've checked I know) So now I want to copy that partition to a bootcamp partition so I can us the firewire peripherals I have. I'm using Nuendo with an M-audio firewire audio device and don't want to spend another £2000 on the plug-ins I have installed in it!

So can I copy this image to boot camp using any of the VMware tools? I then want to run that OS as a stand alone system.

If not I can still use my old PC as an audio station but the iMac would be so much better!

Many thanks in advance.

Kenny.

iMac 24" 2.8 Duo Core

4GB Ram

Leopard 10.5.1

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Image: Windows XP Pro, 120 Gig partition.

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I guess the easy way woiuld be to install my copy of windows on the bootcamp partition and then run my VMware image in VMWare Workstation for windows?

Would that work?

Is there a way for me to natively run my image on the boot camp partition?

I'm drowning in a sea of frustration!

Cheers,

K.

[admin]

I guess the easy way woiuld be to install my copy of windows on the bootcamp partition and then run my VMware image in VMWare Workstation for windows?

Would that work?

That would work, except that Windows can't natively read or write HFS+ - if your VM was on a FAT partition (and the disk was split instead of monolithic), I would expect it to work.

Is there a way for me to natively run my image on the boot camp partition?

As far as I know there is no easy way to go from a virtual machine to a physical partition (the reverse is easier). Instead, you might consider using third-party migration software (or manually copy data) to get your important data off the virtual machine, and reinstall your applications in the physical partition. Alternately, you could use some third-party backup software in the virtual machine, then restore to the physical partition.

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Thanks for the answer.

I tried using Acronis True Image, I already use that for my back ups, but when booting into the Acronis CD, the USB mouse and keyboard are ignored and I'm unable to select my restore image from the menu and it just times out into windows! This experience is what triggered my problems!

I don't want to install everything from scratch on the boot camp partition as it has taken literally years to get my machine working as I want it. I also have a special version of windows which has been trimmed down nnice and lean and runs at a lightining pace. Yes it could be done but it would be the best part of a week of my spare time to get all the apps installed and configured so I guess I wanted to go for a quicker option.

It doesn't matter about access to the mac volume. I use the Mac and PC entireley seperately and would just have common files on a USB external drive should I need to share.

Everything was going great until I hit the PC side of the migration from my 2 computers to one iMac...surprise surprise.

K.

[admin]

I tried using Acronis True Image, I already use that for my back ups, but when booting into the Acronis CD, the USB mouse and keyboard are ignored and I'm unable to select my restore image from the menu and it just times out into windows! This experience is what triggered my problems!

So Acronis doesn't have USB drivers on the boot CD?

I don't want to install everything from scratch on the boot camp partition as it has taken literally years to get my machine working as I want it. I also have a special version of windows which has been trimmed down nnice and lean and runs at a lightining pace. Yes it could be done but it would be the best part of a week of my spare time to get all the apps installed and configured so I guess I wanted to go for a quicker option.

Yep, makes sense. It wasn't clear from your original post if you had a good reason like this or not.

Remember that Workstation (actually, all virtualization products as far as I know) doesn't support firewire either, so you'll be using your M-audio device on the un-optimized native system, then having to transfer/share your data into the VM.

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After much messing around and approx 40 hours on this problem I've finally given up!

BartPE was the answer to getting things going from 'Dos' but even then Acronis wanted to see a completely clean drive to restore to and wouldn't allow partitions. I even tried just plugging the image and copying all the original HDD the files (via bartPE) to the partition. I got the classic Hal.dll error but after fixing it I still got a blue screen error, not surprising since the OS woke up inside a new computer! I expect the IDE controller failed at the first hurdle and stopped the OS from starting.

To add insult to injury, I finally re-installed just what I really needed to work with the bootcamp windows install, only to find out that my M-Audio firewire box does not work with the Aluminium iMacs!! :_| Absolutely gutted after so many hours work!

With so much hardware and software variation its a miracle anything works.

So I'll have to wait until we get firewire support on the VMWare or that Apple release a fix for the firewire audio devices, of which I believe none work with the new iMac's.

If it wasn't for the fact that I had built (and paid for!) a music recording studio on the PC, I would justswitch to Mac, but I just cannot afford to re-buy all the plugins and VSTi's. I have a copy of Nuendo for Mac too, it's just a tease that I can't use all the goodies with it.

Thanks for the input. Time to enjoy a nice new year celebration with all computers turned off, except maybe the Wii!

K.