Desktop PC to virtual image?

[IAmATeaf]

How the hell do I convert a running desktop PC to a bootable virtual image.

I'm evaluating Citrix XenServer, Desktop Delivery Controller and Provisioning Server. I've installed the Provisioning server client tools on the desktop, got access to the virtual disk and made a copy but the virtual disk when booted just blue screens as obviously the drivers it's loading in the real PC aren't relevant in the virtual image.

I've have changed the HAL and NTOSKRNL to use the uni-processor ACPI variants instead of the multi-processor it was using but same blue screen, I've also tried removing some drivers especially the IDE/SATA drivers but can't complete the process as the PC either hangs of crashes as I am effectively removing it's legs from under it.

Any experts out there that can help. Also due to the fact that Citrix doesn't support a floppy drive and doesn't have true DOS emulation I can't really build the virtual image within Citrix as we have an automated process for arriving at a 'Gold' image which is kicked off via a floppy disk and is all network based so the initial bit loads DOS network drivers, connects to a share and starts of the build process.

All so much easier to do in VMWare but the customer insists on using Citrix

 

[IAmATeaf]

Found some answers to this, posting in case it helps others, I've found 2 ways of doing this:

1) Create the initial virtual desktop in VMware as this has true support for floppy and DOS 16-bit commands so my build floppy disk works fine within a virtual desktop and builds fine. Then use the tool V2XVA_Utility provided by Citrix to convert the VMWare disk image to XVA format, then import the converted image directly into XenServer as a hard disk.

2) Xen also provide some beta software called XenConvert, you install this on a real machine and directly import the real desktop into Xen.

I've tested both methods and they surprisingly both work.