Comments on: Convert your Windows computer into a virtual machine

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Mon, 10 May 2010 21:07:19 +0000

A comment on Colin Walters’ post, he was hitting the 127GB limit imposed by MS Virtual PC. I just overcame that by using Disk2vhd and then creating a virtual machine using VirtualBox http://www.virtualbox.org instead of MS Virtual PC. Works great.

By: Boran

Boran — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:08:06 +0000

What if I have a dual boot setup? Can I convert each OS into it’s own virtual machine? I’m guessing it can since it lets you choose a volume/partition correct? Thanks.

By: Colin Walters

Colin Walters — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:50:30 +0000

More information since my last post.
The problem detailed above (item 4) was because although the logical partition I converted using disk2vhd was less than the 127GB limit imposed by MS Virtual PC, other partitions on the same physical drive, pushed the whole VHD beyond 127GB. (i.e it builds all partitions on the source disc, even those are not needed).
I got around this problem by using WHS to put the physical XP system on a smaller hard drive, and then running disk2vhd again.
That solved that problem, but Virtual PC still fails to boot from the VHD file built by disk2vhd.
I can get the system to start booting in Windows Safe Mode but it just hangs whilst loading the driver files found in \windows\system32\drivers.
I currently have a call out with Microsoft for their input.

By: Colin Walters

Colin Walters — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:18:34 +0000

Sorry, but this utility does not work for me! I have generated several VHD images from a working Windows XP Professional system. Disk2VHD generates the VHD image file OK; but when the image file is given to the Windows 7 Virtual PC Manager as “an existing virtual hard disk” the following error message is displayed “Cannot attach the virtual hard disk to the virtual machine.

Check the values provided and try again”. Which is highly unhelpful! The VHD image is accessible when attached to the Windows 7 Disk Management; but the Virtual PC Manager must presumablly, have more strict validation rules. Can you tell me how to overcome this problem?

I am using Windows 7 Ultimate and have several Virtual PCs running OK. But I need to convert my existing XP images. None of these work under Virtual PC; presumably because the system32 drivers required by the system used direct on the hardware and not present in the virtual PC environment. I had hoped this software would overcome thta problem…

By: wiredmind

wiredmind — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 04:20:36 +0000

Can you use this tool to convert offline Windows XP installation to virtual machine, eg. your cousin’s computer croaked and there is a program he must access so you plug in the drive into your computer and convert that into .vhd so you can bring his machine back to life as a virtual machine.

By: Yansky

Yansky — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:39:15 +0000

Cheers, thanks for the tip. Virtualizing Windows was easy.

By: bigjohnny

bigjohnny — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:52:53 +0000

you can also load a VHD into Virtualbox ( http://www.virtualbox.org/ )