Win 98 and VM Converter Standalone Problem

[NeilMaller]

Environment

We have some obsolete and proprietary software that won't run on anything newer than Win98. It's currently on a physical PC whose contents I want to run as a VM under Fusion on an iMac. This software installation and its data files are highly customized such that reinstalling and reconfiguring from scratch would be... painful (trust me on this).

The Plan

Hot or cold clone the Win98 PC to an external USB drive, import clone to a Fusion VM on the Mac.

(Yeah I know that Win98 isn't fully supported by Converter.)

The Problem

VMware Converter won't even install on the Win98 PC. The install wizard gets all the way to the end, fails and then rolls back to zero.

OK, so how about a cold clone with the Converter Boot CD. Ooops, what Boot CD is that? It's referred to in various places but I can't find any way to order one on the VMware site.

Ideas?

- Use the Boot CD... if it exists?

- Supposedly Fusion will import Norton Ghost disk images... but I'll have to find an old version of Ghost (v8 or 2003 I think) that's Win98 compatible. (Edit: but Ghost 9 image required for import. Drat!)

- Is there any way for Fusion to import the PC drive contents directly, such as by removing it from the PC box, installing to a Firewire or USB dock, hooking that up to the Mac?

- Any other ideas?

TIA,

Neil

[weinstein5]

Cold clone would be the way to go - when you create cd from the converter ISO make sure it is bootable - because this is the boot cd they are referring to - this will allow you to run converter in a small footprint o/s and convert the machine -

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[NeilMaller]

I'd be happy to cold clone, but the Converter Boot CD (or ISO image) seems to exist only in the land of unicorns and other mythical creatures.

Neil

[weinstein5]

you can download from here - http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/

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[NeilMaller]

Hi, W5.

OK, apparently I'm confused. That's the standalone hot Converter, which I already downloaded and wasn't able to install successfully (see original post) on the Win98 system. What I'm now trying to figure out is where the Converter Boot CD is to be found.

Neil

[weinstein5]

You do not install converter on to the machine you want to convert but on to a stand alone machine running windows - you should have had an option to download an ISO image - this will allow you to create a cd that is bootable -

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[NeilMaller]

Following the links to download ultimately ends up here: http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/download.html

Unfortunately there is no ISO image download option, only the Converter .exe files in various 3.x versions.

Neil

[continuum]

to convert win 98 create a ghost image - restore the ghost image into a newly created VM - virtual Hardware type 5

boot it and cross your fingers

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description of vmx-parameters:

VMware-liveCD:

[NeilMaller]

Creating and restoring a Ghost image is my primary path right now. (That and the crossing fingers...) I don't have any reason to believe that the required v9 or later of Ghost will actually install/run under Win98, so it will likely be necessary to create a boot CD of that, which will be uncharted territory. Ghost only comes with a Restore Boot CD. This would all be somewhat easier on a Mac.