If you don't want to read my jabber then skip to the summary at the bottom.
When I set out to do this I really thought it was a common practice and expected a blog such as this to guide me through. Alas, there were none which lead to success. I do thank the people who posted help in forums and other online media because without your incomplete assistance I may not have been able to weave this together. :)
What you need:
A computer with linux (the computer you want to copy)
A bootable Ubuntu CD or other linux live CD [http://www.ubuntu.com/]
A USB NTFS Hard drive large enough to hold the linux image
What you need:
A computer with linux (the computer you want to copy)
A bootable Ubuntu CD or other linux live CD [http://www.ubuntu.com/]
A USB NTFS Hard drive large enough to hold the linux image
Step 1 (create a raw image)
Put the live CD in the computer to copy. Boot the computer to the CD.
Open a terminal/bash console.
Open a terminal/bash console.
Type this:
sudo fdisk -l
Make note of the drive locations. Now we need to perform the copy.
Type this:
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.raw
Note: Replace hda above with the drive you want to copy and replace media/sda1 with the path to a USB drive or some other drive to copy to. If you are moving this image to windows, this will need to be a NTFS drive. Fat32 has a file limit of 4GB.
The above will take a while to copy. A few minutes to an hour or so, depending on the size of the disk. Once complete you'll have a file in the zip of the raw drive image.
Step 2 (convert the raw image to a virtual image)
Extract the GZ file. Rename the extracted file to disc.raw.
Type this:
qemu-img convert /media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.raw -O vmdk /media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.vmdk
Note: 'convert -o vmdk' tells qemu to convert the raw file to an output of vmdk. Change the path to your disc.raw file and change the path to your desired output location. This conversion will take a few minutes to an hour or so. If you have problems, you may need to update qemu. Run: sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm
Step 3 (import the vmdk)
You're all set. Now open VMWare and import the vmdk file. You can also use a different virtual machine program such as virtual box.
Summary:
(notate drive to image and to where)
sudo fdisk -l
(create raw image)
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.raw
(install qemu)
sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm
(convert raw image to vhd)
qemu-img convert /media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.raw -O vmdk /media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.vmdk
END
Type this:
qemu-img convert /media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.raw -O vmdk /media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.vmdk
Note: 'convert -o vmdk' tells qemu to convert the raw file to an output of vmdk. Change the path to your disc.raw file and change the path to your desired output location. This conversion will take a few minutes to an hour or so. If you have problems, you may need to update qemu. Run: sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm
Step 3 (import the vmdk)
You're all set. Now open VMWare and import the vmdk file. You can also use a different virtual machine program such as virtual box.
Summary:
(notate drive to image and to where)
sudo fdisk -l
(create raw image)
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.raw
(install qemu)
sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm
(convert raw image to vhd)
qemu-img convert /media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.raw -O vmdk /media/3AA0A960077BE663/disc.vmdk
END
