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Running virtual XP from disk

I've got two HP desktop systems (Windows XP) with failed motherboards. I'd like to remove the hard drives (the boot drive from each system) and run them as virtual systems.

Since the desktop systems won't boot I can't run any imaging software on the running O/S.

Any suggestions? I really don't want to buy an HP motherboard just to recover these.

Thanks,
Kent

Gary Case

Assuming the disks themselves are good (i.e. the OS's would boot if you had a good motherboard); then you can simply attach them to another system; image them with Acronis; and then mount them in VMware Workstation.

You used to have to convert the Acronis image using VMware Converter ... but I'm fairly sure the newest version of Workstation no longer requires this (I'm not certain of that -- you may still need to take that extra step).

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Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

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Gary Case

"... The latest Acronis image product is not compatible with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1. " ==> Good to know, I wasn't aware that capability had been lost with the newer versions. A shame, as it was a very simple way to move physical systems to virtual environments.

LeeTutor

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