Getting VPC to boot from an image

Hi,

I would like to run a cloned HDD with all installed apps from an old
XP system in a VPC environment under Vista. I backed up the entire HDD
of the old PC using EASEUS Todo BAckup, and restored the disk using a
bootable CD under VPC. I can't get the system to boot under VPC
however.

The FAQ of the backup software says it could be caused by the
destination HDD does not have the exact parameters (sectors, heads) of
the source drive http://www.todo-backup.com/support/faq/general8.htm

But in VPC you cannot alter these parameters when creating a VHD, can
you? Does anyone have a workaround?

rgds,
NF

On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:20:47 +0200, Nel <>
wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I would like to run a cloned HDD with all installed apps from an old
>XP system in a VPC environment under Vista. I backed up the entire HDD
>of the old PC using EASEUS Todo BAckup, and restored the disk using a
>bootable CD under VPC. I can't get the system to boot under VPC
>however.
>
>The FAQ of the backup software says it could be caused by the
>destination HDD does not have the exact parameters (sectors, heads) of
>the source drive http://www.todo-backup.com/support/faq/general8.htm
>
>But in VPC you cannot alter these parameters when creating a VHD, can
>you? Does anyone have a workaround?
>
>rgds,
>NF
That is typically not the reason for a failure to boot from a physical
computer backup being restired to a virtual computer. The reason is
instead that the hardware is way too different!
The physical PC and the emulated hardware of VPC differ too much.
You have to do a repaoir install of XP on top of the restored image to
fix this.

Or start over using VMWARE instead, they have a conversion application
(free) that can create a bootable copy of your existing PC for a
virtual machine.
Then that can be used under VMWARE Player 3 (free) and you will get
minimal problems. It even handles USB fully, which VPC2007 does not
and probably never will.

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)

"Nel" wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I would like to run a cloned HDD with all installed apps from an old
> XP system in a VPC environment under Vista. I backed up the entire HDD
> of the old PC using EASEUS Todo BAckup, and restored the disk using a
> bootable CD under VPC. I can't get the system to boot under VPC
> however.
>
> The FAQ of the backup software says it could be caused by the
> destination HDD does not have the exact parameters (sectors, heads) of
> the source drive http://www.todo-backup.com/support/faq/general8.htm
>
> But in VPC you cannot alter these parameters when creating a VHD, can
> you? Does anyone have a workaround?
>
> rgds,
> NF
>

1. How big is the image? It if is more than 127GB you can't mount it
successfully for booting in VPC. 127GB is a hard limit of the actual disk
size, not the amount of data. You need to resize it to 127GB or less before
you can attempt to boot. Google VHD resizer for links.
2. After that you will likely need to repair Windows since the hardware
emulated by the VM is not the same as the old physical computers. You will
need to boot from your CD and to a repair installation of Windows.

Nel wrote:
> The FAQ of the backup software says it could be caused by the
> destination HDD does not have the exact parameters (sectors, heads) of
> the source drive http://www.todo-backup.com/support/faq/general8.htm
>
> But in VPC you cannot alter these parameters when creating a VHD, can
> you? Does anyone have a workaround?
>
>
As Bo said, it's caused by the differences in hardware. I was very
successful in migrating a live system once where the complete hardware
was exchanged by making a partition copy (with dd from a rescue CD) and
afterwards performing a repair install from the windos installation CD.

On the other hand, I'm stuck right now trying to migrate VPC virtual
machines to KVM/QEMU. I do not even get the installation CD to offer me
the repair installation.

You might find some useful hints about this kind of migration here:

http://blog.loftninjas.org/2009/05/1...ervers-to-kvm/

Just ignore the platforms being discussed and concentrate on what is
said about
fixing the underlying issues. Hopefully it will present some new
insights for your migration.

Regards,
Andreas Ziegler

On Thu, 8 Apr 2010 09:33:01 -0700, Steve Jain
<> wrote:
>1. How big is the image? It if is more than 127GB you can't mount it
>successfully for booting in VPC. 127GB is a hard limit of the actual disk
>size, not the amount of data. You need to resize it to 127GB or less before
>you can attempt to boot. Google VHD resizer for links.

Thanks, no it is 30Gb only

>2. After that you will likely need to repair Windows since the hardware
>emulated by the VM is not the same as the old physical computers. You will
>need to boot from your CD and to a repair installation of Windows.

I tried this but the repair option does not continue after entering
the administrator pwd (booted from CD and having entered the R option)
It just stays in a command prompt at c:\windows (Or do I need to
startup an exec manually from there perhaps?)

On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 23:11:25 +0200, Nel <>
wrote:

>On Thu, 8 Apr 2010 09:33:01 -0700, Steve Jain
><> wrote:
>>1. How big is the image? It if is more than 127GB you can't mount it
>>successfully for booting in VPC. 127GB is a hard limit of the actual disk
>>size, not the amount of data. You need to resize it to 127GB or less before
>>you can attempt to boot. Google VHD resizer for links.
>
>Thanks, no it is 30Gb only
>
>>2. After that you will likely need to repair Windows since the hardware
>>emulated by the VM is not the same as the old physical computers. You will
>>need to boot from your CD and to a repair installation of Windows.
>
>I tried this but the repair option does not continue after entering
>the administrator pwd (booted from CD and having entered the R option)
>It just stays in a command prompt at c:\windows (Or do I need to
>startup an exec manually from there perhaps?)

Wrong! You have selected to use the Repair Console. This is not what I
said. You should pass the offer of repair console without using it.
Basically you should proceed as if you were to install a fresh XP.
Then later the installer will see that you already have a WinXP
installed and offer to reinstall (don't use that) or do a repair
installation.
This is the one you want.

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)

On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:29:00 +0200, Bo Berglund
<> wrote:

>
>Wrong! You have selected to use the Repair Console. This is not what I
>said. You should pass the offer of repair console without using it.
>Basically you should proceed as if you were to install a fresh XP.
>Then later the installer will see that you already have a WinXP
>installed and offer to reinstall (don't use that) or do a repair
>installation.
>This is the one you want.
>
>--
Found it, thanks!

I recently upgraded to an i5 with Windows 7. Before I retired my old
machine (a P4 running Vista) I cloned it using Disk2vhd 1.4 . I simply
created a a new vm from the vhd file and away it went. I had to reactivate,
but that was it.

I also did the same for my wife's P4 with XP SP3. It booted but won't
activate (Dell OEM version of XP), but I can access any of the files by
attaching the vhd to a running vm.

On Fri, 9 Apr 2010 17:46:41 +1000, "Bill Grant" <not.available@online>
wrote:

>
>
> I recently upgraded to an i5 with Windows 7. Before I retired my old
>machine (a P4 running Vista) I cloned it using Disk2vhd 1.4 . I simply
>created a a new vm from the vhd file and away it went. I had to reactivate,
>but that was it.
>
> I also did the same for my wife's P4 with XP SP3. It booted but won't
>activate (Dell OEM version of XP), but I can access any of the files by
>attaching the vhd to a running vm.
>
I have cloned two laptops and one desktop using VMWARE Converter and
all went well including reactivation using the original activation
codes on the physical hardware. The laptops were HP/Compaq, though,
not DELL.

I have also tried the disk2vhd with the option box checked to modify
the hardware settings on the cloned disk to match VPC2007. Also worked
fine. It seems like this is a good way to do P2V for Microsoft
virtualization of desktop machines. But then I did not clone a laptop.

Note: There is a size limit of 127 Gb for VPC VHD disks so if the
original system is larger than that disk2vhd will fail! It actually
performs the conversion but the resulting VHD cannot be used in VPC
due to the size being too big.

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)

On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:20:47 +0200, Nel <>
wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I would like to run a cloned HDD with all installed apps from an old
>XP system in a VPC environment under Vista.

Thanks all, it worked. The Restore option of the windows XP
installation CD did the trick. However the newly installed virtual
machine wants to be activated again. Does that mean I'm acting against
the EULA?

The original machine running ons the same license of windowsXP will be
disposed of as soon as I have the VM version of its former self
working properly...