Copy Linux installation to external disk

[Potatoswatter]

I created a Linux installation inside VMWare Fusion that I would like to transfer to a desktop machine. How can I clone the .vmdk file to a hard drive?

The problem seems to be poor support for SCSI. I don't understand why there must be a distinction between IDE and SCSI virtual disks, but apparently there is no converting between them.

If I try vmware-vmdkMounterTool, it quietly does nothing. No errors, no results. This tool works fine with IDE .vmdk files.

If I try to view the image in Windows, from where I could clone it onto the external disk, I get an error about no BusLogic SCSI driver installed. I tried every possible solution to that problem and got nowhere. I installed from the .flp driver image and that turned out to be a downgrade; I installed the LSI Logic driver from their website and edited my .vmx file to no effect. Windows sees the virtual adapter but not the disk connected to it.

The remaining solution is to copy from inside Linux, but that's really not optimal. Any tips?

[nkrishnan]

Did you check the possibility of converter, I am not sure that converter got Mac plugin or not.

[Potatoswatter]

Ah, you're right, there is vdiskmanager which should turn SCSI into IDE. I'd still rather try other options that don't involve an additional 80 GB copy operation. I'm booting off the Ubuntu CD now to do a clone…

[WoodyZ]

I have used Clonezilla Live quite a bit to do P2V, P2P, V2V and V2P on several different Linux Distros without any issues.  The one caveat is that I always use GParted to initialize and format the target drive in a single volume even though it's going to get overwritten.  I've found that doing this has been extremely helpful to a successful direct transfer when booting the source and destination with the Clonezilla Live CD/ISO Image and doing direct disk to disk or partition to partition imaging when able, otherwise I create an image to an external drive and use it to do the destination imaging.

At the moment I can't recall whether I went from SCSI to IDE however if you'd tell mw the Linux Distro and Version you're using and attach the VM's .vmx configuration file I'll test it on a small build so you don't waste time on a 80 GB direct transfer.

[WoodyZ]

Okay, I'm pretty sure I had done this in the past (SCSI to IDE) and it worked fine however I had time to test doing a Linux V2P - SCSI to IDE using Clonezilla Live and it went without a glitch.  After imaging and booting the Physical Machine to Linux I was able download, via Ethernet, a driver for my WiFi Network Adapter and installed it and then disconnect the Ethernet and connect via WiFi.  I had Windows on this particular Notebook however I was surprised how nice (faster) Linux ran on it compared to Windows that I think I'll leave it for now.

Note: The Virtual Machine did not have VMware Tools installed.