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Free Physical to virtual (Disk2VHD,P2V) tool for Microsoft Virtual PC or Hyper-V
When I first read news about this free physical to virtual tool, I was happy for couple of reasons:
- On projects, customers are often asking about some kind of free tool from Microsoft to create VHD’s from physical computers. Of course till now we had Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), but to implement SCVMM customers need to buy appropriate licenses. Now they can try P2V with this great free tool.
- Some times customers would like to try Hyper-V, and their main scenario is P2V. Now if they don’t need all enterprise features of SCVMM, they can first use P2V.
- P2V tool runs on running system, there is no need to shut down the computer.
- Lastly but not less important, with this little bit very useful tool you have portable Physical To Virtual utility in your packet (I mean on your USB flash drive).
How to use the tool?
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Download tool from here.
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Unzip it and run it on physical computer you would like to transform into virtual.
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User interface pops out in which you can check or uncheck disk which you would like to convert to VHD format.
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After VHD creation if finished, create virtual machine (Virtual PC or Hyper-V) as you normally would and attach VHD to it.
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Done.
Enjoy using this tool and big thank you to Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell for creating it.
Categories: Hyper-v, Virtual PC
Disk2VHD, free p2v, Hyper-v, P2V, Physical To Virtual, SCVMM
Leave a reply to Don Cancel reply
Age of Virtualization | Hyper-V, App-V, Virtual PC... 
Thanks for the information – I’ve been looking for something like this.
I’m always glad that people can find useful information on my blog. Also, soon I will write topic on some other useful and free virtualization tools..
Regards
cant run on windows 2000 machines
It can run only on Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and higher
Nice post. v-irtualization.com is grea.
I have this catastrophic failure when I run it. What is that?
Hm. What kind of catastrophic failure?
Me too. It is an error message by Disk2Vhd:
Error snapshoting volumes: Catastrophic failure
Sorry no other info.
This is probably related to some VSS issues. Please check if cour Volume Shadow Copy Service Provider(VSS) is started under Services and also set to automatic. Problme can also occur if some files are in use or maybe open when you are doing P2V. Also try to install following update to resolve some VSS issues:
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=940349
i copied my laptop (XP) with this utility without a hitch… when i power it up on my desktop (Win 7 Ultimate) it says it has to be activated… then i get an error. I have an extra XP license if that is what is needed but it just logsoff without allowing me to logon to input my xtra license… any suggestions? thanks.
Hy. Yeah activation problems could occur because hardware is completely changed. You had XP on your normal hardware and now it is in virtual machine. What you could do (if you have license) is adding your network card that has access to internet to that virtual machine and then activate XP.
I used this and everything looks good accept when I boot the newly created VM the vm hangs on the “windows is loading files” screen. Anyone dealt with this?