Migrating from VMWARE to VirtualBox

I am trying to migrate an existing virtual machine from VMWARE to VirtualBox. I made a copy of the virtual machine folder for the virtual machine (so that I can experiment, not destroy the original) and successfully created the virtual machine in VirtualBox. Everything loads and works for me, but the problem is that the VM uses a “flat” disk image instead of the correct disk image, which is why the disk image will be from the past (I know this because all the files on the machine have a 2009 timestamp )

To develop, in the VM folder, I have the following vmdk files:

Win2003.vmdk (1 K) Win2003-flat.vmdk (15 gigs) Win2003-000002.vmdk (10 gigs) 

NOTE: the drive is dynamic.

Looking at the configuration of the virtual machine under VMWARE, she says that she uses the win2003-000002.vmdk image as a disk image.

When I import a disk image into VirtualBox (Win2003.vmdk file), it uses the Win2003-flat.vmdk disk image.

My question is: what can I do to combine or import a Win2003-000002.vmdk disk image into a Win2003-flat.vmdk disk image so that VirtualBox uses the correct image on the disk?

I have some instructions on using vmware-vdiskmanager.exe for this, but I get the error message "The parent of this virtual disk cannot be opened."

+51
virtualbox vmware
Aug 04 2018-11-11T00:
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5 answers

After many attempts, I was finally able to do this. In fact, I did the download and used the vmware converter to combine the two disks into one. After that, I was able to connect the newly created drive to the VitrualBox.

The steps taken are very simple:

BEFORE YOU NOTHING!

1) MAKE BACKUP !!! Even if you follow this instruction, you can damage things, so make a backup. Just close the virtual machine, and then create a copy of the directory in which the VM is located.

2) Remove VMware Tools from the virtual machine that you are going to convert. If for some reason you forget this step, you can still delete it after everything works under VirtualBox by following these steps . Do yourself a favor and just do it now.

NOW START A PART !!!

1) Download and install VMware Converter . I used 5.0.1 build-875114, just use the latest version.

2) Download and install VirtualBox

3) Run the VMWare converter:

Fire up VMWare convertor

4) Click Convert machine

6) Go to .vmx for your virtual machine and click Next .

Convert machine

7) Give the new virtual machine a name and select the place where you want to put it. Click Next

Give the new VM a name and select the location

8) Click Next on the Options screen. You do not need to change anything here.

Click <code> Next </code> on the <code> Options </code> screen.

9) Click Finish on the Summary screen to start the conversion.

Click <code> Finish </code> on the <code> Summary </code> screen

10) The conversion should begin. It takes LOOONG time, so be patient.

The conversion should start.

11) I hope everything went well, if this happened, you should make sure that the conversion is complete:

conversion is completed

12) Now open VirtualBox and click New .

open up VirtualBox and click <code> New </code>

13) Give your virtual machine a name and select what Type and Version . Click Next .

Give your VM a name and select what <code> Type </code> and <code> Version </code> it is.

14) Select the size of the memory you want to transfer. Click Next .

Select the size of the memory you want to give it.

15) For Hard Drive click Use and existing hard drive file and select the newly converted .vmdk file.

Use and existing hard drive file

16) Now click Settings and select the Storage menu. The problem is that by default, VirtualBox will add the drive as an IDE. This will not work, and we need it because we need to put it on the SCSI controller.

<T411>

17) Select the IDE controller and the Remove Controller button.

Select the IDE controller and the <code> Remove Controller </code> button.

18) Now click the Add Controller button and select Add SCSI Controller

Add SCSI Controller

19) Click the Add Hard Disk button.

Add hard disk

20) Click Choose existing disk

Choose existing disk

21) Select the .vmdk file. Click OK

Select your <code> .vmdk </code> file.

22) Select the System menu.

Select the <code> System </code> menu.

23) Click Enable IO APIC . Then click OK

Click <code> Enable IO APIC </code>.

24) Congratulations !!! Your virtual machine is now corrupted! Click Start to start the VM!

Click <code> Start </code> to startup the VM!

+67
Aug 10 '11 at 12:16
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I offer something completely different, we used it at work many years ago on real computers, and it worked perfectly.

Download the old and the new machine to a backup of linux Cd.

read a disk from one and write it to another, block the block, effectively copying dist over the network.

You need to play a little with the command line, but it worked so well that both computers complained of an IP conflict when they both booted up :-) :-)

 cat /dev/sda | ssh user@othermachine cat - > /dev/sda 
+8
Aug 16 2018-11-11T00:
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QEMU has a fantastic qmeu-img utility that will broadcast between all disk image formats. An article about this process is in http://thedarkmaster.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/vmware-virtual-machine-to-virtual-box-conversion-how-to/

I recall in my head that I used qemu-img to collapse several VMDKs into one, but I don’t have a computer to repeat this process. Even if I'm wrong, the article above includes a section that describes how to convert them using your VMWare tools.

+3
Aug 10 2018-11-11T00:
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Note: I am not sure if this will help you, but you never know.

I found this link: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/howto-convert-vmware-image-to-virtualbox-image.html

ENJOY: -)

+2
Aug 16 '11 at 19:18
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This error occurs because VMware has an error that uses the absolute path to the disk file in certain situations.

If you look at the top of this small * .vmdk file, you will most likely see the wrong absolute path to the original VMDK file that needs to be fixed.

+1
Aug 09 2018-11-11T00:
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