In this post we’ll look at how to convert a Hyper-V virtual machine using the VHDX format virtual disk to a VMware Workstation virtual machine using the vmdk format virtual disk. Until Windows 8 I’ve used VMware Workstation for testing, but with the advent of Windows 8 and the built in Hyper-V I decided to give it a try and have been using. Jul 20, 2016 Hi viewers in this video I'll show you how to convert the Acronis tib file to vmware vmdk file. Enjoy this tutorial and subscribe my channel for more tutorial. Please see this tutorial in HD mode. Feb 27, 2008 I read a post somewhere over a year ago that put a TIB file onto a bootable DVD. I will give it a try with both 64 bit. What I would like to know is what Acronis say by 'Convert image files to VMDK or VHD for instant virtualization' This is a nice feature if we can just take the tib file and converted to a vmware file and then just use the player to run the image.
Jul 20, 2016 Hi viewers in this video I'll show you how to convert the Acronis tib file to vmware vmdk file. Enjoy this tutorial and subscribe my channel for more tutorial. Please see this tutorial in HD mode. Feb 27, 2008 I read a post somewhere over a year ago that put a TIB file onto a bootable DVD. This can be done by using the VMWare vCenter Converter standalone, this can convert the.tib file directly into your ESXi server. The standalone converter can be obtained from the downloads section of VMWare you might need to actually purchase this software, but if you have a number of machines you need to import then it's really recommended, they might do a 60 evaluation so you can see if it.
Note: This assumes you are trying to virtualize a Windows OS.
What if you had a perfectly good working hard drive but the machine that was running it was dead, DOA, not working, or had been upgraded with a new hard drive and OS? Connecting that to a machine and getting the files is easy enough but what about if you wanted to boot the OS back up? The Virtual Option is going to be your best bet but how? Sure there are plenty of options like Ghost that will keep your machine backed up with a VMDK option but how to accomplish this without spending money? Now that is a challenge…challenge accepted!
The process is generally referred to as Physical To Virtual or P2v for short. In doing some research on how to do this I’ve worked out a process that as long as you don’t mind forking over a working email address (man these sites are so clever!) you can download a couple tools to make this possible.
Convert Vmdk To Vdi
To accomplish this task you will need to complete the following steps:
- Create the virtual drive image (vmdk) file to use with VM Ware Workstation 10.x or VM Player 6.0
- Create the VMX File used by the converter
- Tranform the image with the appropriate drivers to boot (HAL, HD, etc.)
Depending on what machines you have at your disposal here is one method.
Step One – Download Tools
![How to convert tib to vmdk How to convert tib to vmdk](/uploads/1/1/8/6/118605292/529744019.png)
- Disk2VHD
- Use this to pull the image off the drive in to one VHD file
- Download Link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx
- StarWind V2V Image Converter
- Used to convert the VHD to VMDK
- You will have to give them a working email address after which they will email you the link to the download…so sneaky
- Download Link: http://www.starwindsoftware.com/converter
- VM Ware Converter
- Used to load the appropriate drivers and make the VMDK ready for use, otherwise you will get blue screens or boot device errors
- You will have to have a free vmware account to access this download…even more sneaky!
- Download Link: http://www.vmware.com/products/converter
Step Two – Clean up your source!
Convert Tib To Vhd
Do yourself a favor and delete the following files:
- Hibernate and Pagefile files. Turn on show hidden, find these large guys, and delete them.
- Use “Tree Size” free edition and determine where else you can trim unneeded files: http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/
Step Three – Create your image
- Fire up Disk2VHD
- Uncheck “Use Vhdx”, Starwind will complain that it is not a valid image
- Check “Prepare for use in Vitual PC” if you are running on XP or Windows Server 2003. This will save you the “VMware Converter” step.
- Check the partition you wish to backup
- If Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, or higher also backup the hidden system partition that starts with “?Volume{12393df90-…”. You will need this.
- Save to a location that has twice the space as DIsk2VHD recommends as you will need space for the VMDK in the next step.
- If you get Shadow Copy errors, just uncheck that box. It is a convenience, not a deal breaker. It’s used more (I believe) for copying hard drives on machines that are still running AKA your boot drive.
- Create!
- Fire Up StarWind V2V Image Converter
- Run this as administrator
- Select the VHD
- I recommend “VMWare growable image” so that it doesn’t take up space for empty drive space. You can always use the vmware tools to change this.
- Pick IDE
- Select the Save Spot
- Next starts the process…now do something else as unless your drive is small or your machine is insanely fast it is going to take a bit to crunch
- Fire up VM Player
- We need to create the VMX file so that the Converter can process the VMDK file. If you are handy with creating these by hand then skip this step but with the latest version of VM Player, it will create new VM’s from scratch which is something the earlier Pre-5.0 versions would not.
- Go ahead and create the directory for where you want the vmx and vmdk output. Vmware images work much better silo’d and segmented from other files.
- Note: If you have VM Workstation you can use the custom set up of the new VM to select an existing VMDK
- Click “Create a New Virtual Machine”
- Select “I will install the operating system later”
- Pick the appropriate OS
- Use the default location. We are going to move the VMX to the directory you created on step 3.2
- Pick the Size Disk and Single/Multi File, does not really matter. We are just trying to get the VMX created
- The hardware for CPU, RAM, etc. doesn’t matter as much, you will edit these on VM Player once you have converted the image.
- Edit the VMX File
- Make sure somewhere in the file is the following lines:
- ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
- ide1:0.fileName = “C:VMOld MachineOLD-PC.vmdk”
- Where filename equals the path to your VMDK
- Save this file to the directory you created in step 3.2
- This should work…
- Fire Up Vmware Converter
- You do not have to run this as administrator though it does not hurt
- Go ahead and create ANOTHER directory for where you want the FINAL vmx and vmdk output. This is a different directory from step 3.2.
- Click the ‘Convert Machine’
- From the “Select Source Type:” drop down select
- Select your vmx file
- Click Next. If Converter has issues with the VMX this is where it will puke and stop.
- Select the product you’re going to use the VMDK on, Player or Workstation and the directory. This will need to be the directory you created for step 4.2 and not the directory you created in step 3.2
- Review the final details and Next
- Finish to start the process
- Errors with Server 2008, Windows 7, or newer OS (Unable to Find the System Volume, reconfiguration is not possible)
- First, you need to make sure you got the ‘System Reserved’ partition in the image that you made from the source disk. This is the boot loader partition and without it things are pretty hopeless though I’m sure someone has figured out a workaround.
- Second, you will need either the original or similar in system version ISO of the OS you are trying to recover as you will need it to boot up and run several commands.
- Third, you will need to use VM Player or workstation to boot up the source VMDK. You will need to add the ISO referenced in step 5.2 and you will probably need to boot in to the VM bios in order to make the CD ISO bootable. There is a handy option now to boot straight in to the bios, saving you the effort of having to bang the keyboard before the post finishes and boots in to the OS.
- Once you have booted in to the recovery/setup, you will need to follow these steps outlines in this webpage: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1037507
- If you do a “bcdedit’ and the partition says ‘unknown’ use this
- If your OS is on ‘D:’ use step 10 and not 8, this is what I had to do for my Server 2008 R2 image
- I did not have to do the regedit, just the bcdedit commands. This fixed the ‘unknown’ issues
If this seems like a lot of steps, it is but I tried to skip obvious steps/defaults. The challenge was mostly getting the right tools, understanding the order of operation, and then the new boot loader Microsoft uses for its latest OS’s. If someone actually uses this and needs help, finds a missing step, dead link, or just a general question please leave a comment and I’ll do my best, thanks for the read and hope this has been helpful.
Here are the pages that I used to help kick start this:
Tib To Vmware
- And about a million VMware Community Forum Posts