Convert Windows 7 64-bit physical to virtual

Craig321 · 20 Aug 2011 at 09:35

Hi,

I've been trying to convert my old Windows 7 install into a VM to run on my new machine.

The VM starts to boot, but then will blue screen half way through the W7 boot animation. I have followed the instructions here, but no luck: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006295

Safe mode doesn't work & running a repair from the W7 DVD doesn't work either.

How would I go about converting physical into virtual properly? I'm guessing it's a driver issue as it's a 7B blue screen. Is there anything that will strip the drivers out while converting the machine?

Thanks.

Sin_Chase · 20 Aug 2011 at 16:40

There are lots of pieces of P2V software about but I have not come across any free ones yet. I have only ever used commercial products.

A quick Google suggests VMWare Converter Starer edition is free and should be able to do a P2V.

theheyes · 20 Aug 2011 at 19:14

I haven't used it myself but you could try this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ee656415

If it blue screens when you attempt to boot, try uninstalling the antivirus and sysprepping before cloning. Unfortunately however I see this in about 1 in 4 Win7 boxes I try to move to new hardware and end up rebuilding.

Meatball · 20 Aug 2011 at 23:36

disk2vhd

Edit: Beaten

Craig321 · 21 Aug 2011 at 10:19

I'll give it a try, thanks. I reckon it might give the same blue screen problem as when I used VMWare converter though.

Why can't VMare make this a bit easier?

Sin_Chase · 21 Aug 2011 at 14:02

It should not. The software is made SPECIFICALLY to image the system to a VM compatible HAL. It's not just a boggo standard image in VM format, much more happens in the background.

7B is probably disk controller drivers, in-fact - it almost definitely will be

Craig321 · 21 Aug 2011 at 19:18

All sorted now. Not 100% sure what made it work, but after playing with the boot manager and other settings in Converter on the live machine it all went through fine.