Old Windows 2000 Virtualized

[asterof]

Si I have an old windows 2000 machine with a bunch of PLC programs on it. What I want to do is convert the hard drive to a VMWare Virtual Image. The hard drive is plugged into a external USB caddy. So anyone converted an external HD to a Virtual Image

 

[(8{)} ( .)]

It's pretty much a no-brainer. The problem is that the VM-Ware virtual machines that I've created in this way recently demand that I license Window even though our customer paid for the original installation. Particularly annoying is a Windows 2003 server that I converted and we couldn't find the license for.

Good luck,

Yosi

 

[Ken Roach]

You can try using the VMWare vCenter Converter Standalone, but it won't be easy.

The main problem is that VMWare emulates SCSI type hard drives, and many old Windows installations don't support them.

You can find various technical summaries on the Internet about how to inject the proper drivers into Windows before the conversion.

 

[Str8jCkt]

Currently I use VirtualBox instead of VMWare but you should be able to create a VHD of the drive using Disk2VHD tool. Then convert the VHD to VMDK using WinImage. VMWare should then be able to mount the VMDK file.

The emulation as SCSI may pose a problem. I thought VMWare would allow virtualization as IDE but also not being a user of VMWare in a while if that is no longer the case I am not sure how to get around that without injecting drivers as Ken mentioned.

VirtualBox you can emulate as IDE or SATA. Actually have a couple of Win2K images that I can boot. Since it is free you could also install VirtualBox and use it to convert the VHD to VMDK for you as well. That way you could boot the Win2K in VirtualBox and try installing the necessary drivers for SCSI.