Dead laptop hard drive to VM? Maybe?

[PinDimm]

Greetings everybody.

Long story short, my laptop died, and I have its hard drive. I need to make use of two or three of its programs at least a few more times before I turn it into storage. I read about Virtual Machines (Complete Newbie), and how they help preserve old OS by virtualizing them. I was wondering how to make a virtual machine from this hard drive. The only thing I have installed so far is VM ware converter, but it did not show my laptop hard drive as an option. Any ideas? I appreciate all the help.

[PinDimm]

I forgot to add that I will use the programs to pull files from them and transfer them to a usb drive.

[scott28tt]

vCenter Converter Standalone is the tool which converts from physical to virtual.

Documentation is here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vCenter-Converter-Standalone/6.2/com.vmware.convsa.guide/GUID-D0C4114C-8A...

[PinDimm]

I read almost the whole thing, and I am still confused. I do not aim to be a virtual machine expert; I just have a very specific use case. May someone give some further insight? The options always aim for my source machine or my C drive. The drive I want to virtualize is another.

[scott28tt]

Is there a way of you transferring data and applications from the old hard drive to your new laptop?

Do you have a way of getting the old hard drive into a system where you could boot the OS on it?

[PinDimm]

Thanks for replying Scott, I have the drive installed on my main pc. The answer to your first question is no because of their specific settings. As for your second question, I believe I could boot into it through the bios (boot order). What would I do once I'm in there?