[dba-Tech] New virtual drive

Mark Breen marklbreen at gmail.com
Thu Jan 14 02:59:55 CST 2010


Thanks Steve,

that is great news, I will try Sysinternals today

Mark


2010/1/13 Steve Erbach <erbachs at gmail.com>

> Mark,
>
> >> First to Steve: you mentioned that you had to use an XP Cd to perform a
> repair / upgrade.  Is that because the machine was Win98?  Could you not
> have left it running as Win98.  The reason I ask is I have an XP Laptop I
> want to P2V so I am wondering will I still need to dig out a XP disk, or if
> I am happy with the OS, can I use the tools you kindly recommdned and I
> will
> be good to go. <<
>
> I'm sorry if I confused the issue.  John asked about Windows 98.  I have
> not
> converted a Windows 98 machine to a VM...I've only done it successfully
> with
> two Windows XP Pro machines.
>
> I had to dig out the XP disk because converting an existing physical XP
> machine to a VM requires that Windows XP be informed as to the different
> hardware available to it.  It's similar to extracting a Windows hard disk
> from one machine and installing it into a completely different PC and
> trying
> to get it to boot.  You have to run a repair on Windows to get it to
> recognize the new hardware and install the necessary drivers.
>
> The Sysinternals Disk2vhd program simply converts the existing hard disk to
> a VHD file with no alteration of the contents of the drive.  The repair has
> to be done on Windows to get it to boot as a VM using Microsoft Virtual PC.
>  My educated guess would be that something similar has to be done with any
> other virtualizing software before a converted bootable drive can be made
> to
> run under a virtualization scheme.
>
> My 2nd XP machine that I converted to a VM was a royal pain in the neck
> because its registry was a little flaky.  I finally used PCTools Registry
> Mechanic to iron out its wobbles.  That allowed a "clean" VHD to be
> created.
>  THEN I could repair the Windows install.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve Erbach
> Neenah, WI
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 3:06 AM, Mark Breen <marklbreen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello All,
> >
> > I am reading this thread with baited breath.
> >
> > (
> > By they way, is that the correct spelling of baited, should it be bated,
> as
> > in unabated.
> >
> > Haha, I just googled this question, and if you do not mind, I will leave
> it
> > here for amusement
> > http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm
> > http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/bated-breath.html
> >
> > )
> >
> >
> > Back to the thread.
> >
> > First to Steve: you mentioned that you had to use an XP Cd to perform a
> > repair / upgrade.  Is that because the machine was Win98?  Could you not
> > have left it running as Win98.  The reason I ask is I have an XP Laptop I
> > want to P2V so I am wondering will I still need to dig out a XP disk, or
> if
> > I am happy with the OS, can I use the tools you kindly recommdned and I
> > will
> > be good to go.
> >
> > To Bobby:My brother is trying to convince me to switch to VMWare instead
> of
> > VM by MS, including the HyperV Services that I am happy with on W2k8.  Do
> > you think that VM ware is better, If so, should I try to install from
> > scratch or can I load it on top of W2k8.  I get the impression from a
> first
> > pass on the VM ware site that there are two breeds of VM ware, on that
> > installs over an existing OS and one that installs on a bare metal box -
> is
> > that a correct assumption?  If so, I have to assume that the bare metal
> box
> > is much better.
> >
> >
> > To All:
> > This year I build a number of VM machines, Win2k3, 2k8, Vista, Win7, XP
> Pro
> > etc.  My experience was pretty much good.  I can use them as IIS Servers,
> > SQL Servers etc with no probs.  However, when I try to use the Vista or
> the
> > W7 machine as a Front End machine, IOW as a machine where the primary
> > function is to server a fast GUI then I was dis-satasfied.  IOW, I can
> use
> > it for a few minutes or hours even, but when I was the sort of response
> > time
> > you get from a native machine, the VM was not giving it.  Sure it can
> load
> > MS word or VS2008, but I found small delays of 1/2 second to be tireseome
> > when traversing VS2008 or SSMS etc.
> >
> > IOW, my personal summary was for rapid response from a GUI stick with
> > physical machine, but the VM were really really good as a second choice.
> >
> > I built up a library of machine that I do not touch, and a second library
> > that I use, but can delete and replace with the clean machine at anytime.
> >
> > One last thing, you can move machines from Virtual Server to HyperV, but
> > you
> > have to re-activate Windows when you move them.
> > One other last thing, since I saw how good HyperV is, I do not wish to
> ever
> > use Virtual Server again.
> > AFAIK, HyperV requires W2k8
> >
> > Hope someone benefits from this and you do not have to wait with bated
> > breath again like me:)
> >
> > Mark
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 2010/1/13 Bobby Heid <bheid at sc.rr.com>
> >
> > > John,
> > >
> > > I used VMware Converter (http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/) to
> > > convert my Vista64 PC using a Ghost 14 backup image to a VM with great
> > > success.  I think, from what I read, that doing V2PC for stuff other
> than
> > > Vista is pretty easy.
> > >
> > > Bobby
> >
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