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  • 1.  convert physical harddisk / vhd-file

    Posted Jul 20, 2015 08:35 PM

    I expected that it would be the easiest thing to do, to convert a hard disk from a broken laptop to a virtual machine, but I'm still struggling!

    • Using O&O Diskimage I created a .omg image file and converted this to an .vhd file - when setting up the VM in Workstation 11 I selcted this .vhd image as the virtual disk. Ruslt I got a Windows boot error (see attached file)
    • Converting the .vhd file with vConverter does not work, because vConverter can not read the .vhd file
    • Even the latest vConverter version (6.0.0) does not offer the option to convert a locally connected (external) harddisk (from a laptop) into a virtual machine image file.
    • software to create disk image file which are compatible with vConverter are mentioned in "VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Online Help : System Requirements : Supported Source Types" but lists only old software which is hard to get.

    Any suggestions how to get this done ?



  • 2.  RE: convert physical harddisk / vhd-file

    Posted Jul 21, 2015 11:02 AM

    Is the VHD the primary disk?

    If it is then it is booting from the VHD but because your hardware has changed to a VM windows doenst like it, you would need to repair windows.



  • 3.  RE: convert physical harddisk / vhd-file

    Posted Jul 21, 2015 11:08 AM

    Try to create a new Boot.inf file and repair the OS , it should fix all the missing files

    Did you try a OS repair ?



  • 4.  RE: convert physical harddisk / vhd-file

    Posted Jul 21, 2015 12:21 PM

    yes, the .vhd-file is the primary disk

    When I start the VM, I get a Windows boot error :

    File: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

    Status: 0xc000035a

    Info: Attempting to load a 64-bit application, however this CPU is not compatible with 64-bit mode.

    When I boot this VM from a Windows 7 (64-bit) ISO (to try the Windows repair functionality), I get the same message - I don't have this problem when I create a new VM from scratch using this ISO-file.

    The host machine has a Intel i3 2350 CPU which is running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit , although I think that hardware visualization support is currently disabled, but even without it all my other Windows 7 VMs run flawlessly.



  • 5.  RE: convert physical harddisk / vhd-file

    Posted Jul 21, 2015 01:52 PM

    Hi Sven,

    Your other windows VMs work because they were built within VMware.

    The VHD that you are trying to use has been built on different hardware e.g. a physical machine, then converted to a VHD and attached to a VM as the primary disk. That is a significant hardware change for Windows thus it will require the repair to take place before it will boot into the OS.

    This is more of a Windows OS issue than a VMware issue., The following article explains how to get to recovery mode, from there you can run a startup repair which should resolve the issue How to start the Windows 7 Recovery Environment

    Regards,

    Steve



  • 6.  RE: convert physical harddisk / vhd-file

    Posted Jul 21, 2015 05:15 PM

    I was able to solve the problem I described by enabling hardware virtualization support within the BIOS of the host machine.

    Now Windows start, but even in safe mode it crashes with a blue screen after ClassPNP.sys

    ... booting from an ISO, the automatic Windows repair reported that it can not solve the problem.