move installed xp on pc to virtualbox in win7.

RoyalMarine

I have a pc with xp installed.

I want to move it to a virtualbox so i can run it from within my windows 7 OS.

any suggestions on how to do this?

FSL

I remember seeing something like that on the Virtual Box Forums when I was looking to solve a problem I had with VB.

As far as I remember there were instructions as to how to image an existing system in order to run it under VB.

RoyalMarine

found a nifty program that converts your host OS to a virtual image.

just running into blue screen now in virtualbox, so thats good.
doing a repair on it and hopefully ill be up and running soon.

Overheal

i take it youre trying to salvage grandfathered software?

Gonzovision

RoyalMarine wrote: »

found a nifty program that converts your host OS to a virtual image.

just running into blue screen now in virtualbox, so thats good.
doing a repair on it and hopefully ill be up and running soon.

Link for software?

RoyalMarine

Overheal wrote: »

i take it youre trying to salvage grandfathered software?

few weeks back i had to move xp from really old machine to new machine. sadly, the xp software came with tons of problems that we cant seem to solve.
printer problems, dialup to bank modem problems, and the xp was installed by the previous company, and has severly reduced admin abilities due to their "wonderful" tech department......

gonzovision wrote: »

Link for software?

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

Capt'n Midnight

licensing is some thing to look at , you will need a second license for the VM unless the original license is transferable.
but you could get a business license and downgrade it

two things to try, image the drive first so not painted into a corner
change all drivers in device manager to standard , like standard IDE / PCI etc. before the move

alternatively do a full restore from ntbackup on to a clean windows install, including system state and choose the option to overwrite all files, this will "merge" the programs from one with the device drivers from the other

RoyalMarine

i did a test with windows 7 on the weekend.

it created the virtual image very quickly.
i then loaded the image to virtualbox.
it loaded fine, but bluescreened during boot.

i loaded a virtual image of windows 7 and repaired the mbr, boot record etc.

windows 7 loaded fine.

then i tested it with windows server 2003, ran into a few problems due to restrictions, but finally got it to make the virtual image.
however, i could not get it to load after a repair in virtualbox.

i did discover that this is probably due to my processor, as i installed the same os on my pc, and it worked fine.

now, i just gotta try it with the xp, but hopefully that wont be a problem and it should go ok.....

Fysh

I'd have thought that trying out the Physical Disk to VHD utility and loading the VHD in Virtual PC would be less likely to run into problems, tbh. I've seen comments around the place that suggest VirtualBox can run VHD images but may throw up activation-related issues...

Gonzovision

Fysh wrote: »

I'd have thought that trying out the Physical Disk to VHD utility and loading the VHD in Virtual PC would be less likely to run into problems, tbh. I've seen comments around the place that suggest VirtualBox can run VHD images but may throw up activation-related issues...

According to the link it doesn't copy the OS

Fysh

gonzovision wrote: »

According to the link it doesn't copy the OS

I hadn't realised that, although I'm curious as to whether it won't work or whether MS just don't want to provide support for when it goes wrong. The more awkward bit is that you need to be running the tool from another OS installation as you need to remove the drive letter while running it.

I've seen a few threads on other boards where people claim to have used it successfully, but none of them appear to be as straightforward as "run utility, create VHD, create new VM using VHD". On the other hand, VMware do sell a product that's supposed to be pretty straightforward to use so I suppose it depends whether you want to pay in time or money.

RoyalMarine

Fysh wrote: »

but none of them appear to be as straightforward as "run utility, create VHD, create new VM using VHD". On the other hand, VMware do sell a product that's supposed to be pretty straightforward to use so I suppose it depends whether you want to pay in time or money.

the link i provided is for vm's conversion utility.

Its a free trial, but it works wonders.
it was as simple as selecting "physical host", convert.
open virtualbox, select virtual file, start.
insert windows cd.
quick mbr repair.
boom. logged in, no problems with activation or OS copy.

really reccommend it for anyone wanting to do this.

Fysh

RoyalMarine wrote: »

the link i provided is for vm's conversion utility.

Its a free trial, but it works wonders.
it was as simple as selecting "physical host", convert.
open virtualbox, select virtual file, start.
insert windows cd.
quick mbr repair.
boom. logged in, no problems with activation or OS copy.

really reccommend it for anyone wanting to do this.

Sounds very nice. Does the free trial let you convert the VirtualBox drive to a VHD? I don't particularly prefer VirtualPC to VirtualBox, but I'm curious about what can be done with it and I've seen mention elsewhere that conversion between disk image types is possible.

RoyalMarine

from what i saw when doing it yeah, there are LOTS of options for different types of conversion.

the program is only 124mb in size, well worth downloading and having a look.