How to turn a physical computer into a virtual machine with disk2vhd

Disk2VHD is a free application that will make a copy of a hard disk from within the OS using Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability. This copy can then be mounted in Windows as a ‘disk’ or run as a Virtual Machine.

Some of the reasons why you would want to do this is to make a backup of the OS, test a repair in the virtual machine copy before you do so in the live environment or move an existing OS installation into a new or different one. For example, backing up a clients install of Windows Vista, doing a clean install of Windows 7 and then allow the client to run their old Windows Vista install in a Virtual Machine.

The application is small, fast, portable and very easy to use. Simply run the executable, choose the location where you want to backup the Virtual Machine image to, tick the drives you want to make an image of, and press “Create”.

As the name suggests, the image gets turned into a .VHD file which is native to MS Virtual PC. One downside of MS Virtual PC is that it only supports a maximum virtual disk size of 127GB. However, other software such as VirtualBox can also open .VHD files and support much larger image sizes.

In my own tests, I made an image of my C: drive which took around 5 minutes. I opened up Virtualbox, pressed “New” and went through the Create Virtual Machine wizard. When the Hard Drive stage came I chose to “Use an existing virtual hard drive” and chose the .VHD file that Disk2VHD created for me. I got a Blue Screen of Death when I first tried to boot the VM but the solution to this was to go into the virtual machines settings, goto Storage, remove the .VHD file as a SATA controller and add it back in as an IDE controller. After I made that change and booted the Virtual Machine everything worked fine.

The following article covers the process of converting a physical Windows computer into a VirtualBox virtual machine image in 3 easy to follow steps. Once done, physical Windows computer can be opened as a virtual machine by using Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Requirements

STEP 1

First, we need to login onto a physical Windows machine that we are planning to clone.

Download the Disk2vhd.zip, once it is downloaded and unzipped, you’ll see the following files:

STEP 2

The next step is to use disk2vhd.exe to create VHD Image of a physical Windows machine.

Right click on disk2vhd.exe and run it as administrator. The following box will pop up:

• Select the drives you want to image
• Make sure you don’t check ‘use Vhdx’, nor ‘Use Volume Shadow Copy’
• Select the path where VHD file will be saved
• Press ‘Create’ button

Once done, you’ll see VHD file created on your hard drive:

STEP 3

The next step is to open Oracle VM Virtual Box manager and create a new Windows machine (in my case it was Windows 7).

The important part is that when it comes to creating a new Hard Disk, instead of creating a new virtual drive, we’ll use the VHD file we have created using Disk2vhd.

The following screenshot illustrates the process:

Once done, you’ll see the new VM in your VirtualBox Manager. You can press start and it’ll load. By pressing the start button, the virtual copy of your physical machine will load:

Disk2vhd is a free software to convert a disk into a corresponding .VHD / .VHDX image file. It can be used to make an image backup of a system, or to virtualize it on a Hyper-V environment.

Virtualization is one of the key aspects of any modern and efficient IT infrastructure. Disk2vhd can therefore be a quick solution to convert physical machines into virtual ones, and have them immediately available in Hyper-V. Disk2vhd was initially created by the SysInternals company, later acquired by Microsoft.

Below we review the simple steps to convert a physical machine to VHD:

1. Download the Disk2vhd utility

Go to Sysinternals page of Microsoft website and download Disj2vhd.

2. Extract the program from the zip and run it

Dik2vhd is portable (no installation required), so just run it. The following interface will be shown, with the list of disks on your computerr:

There are very few options to set:

Use VHDX: VHDX is a new disc format introduced with Windows Server 2012. Compared to the VHD, the VHDX has several improvements, including an internal organization created to reduce data corruption and increased capacity (up to 64 TB). VHDX is the recommended choice.

Use VSS: this option is essential to perform the hot creation of the image and to obtain a consistent copy of the data

VHD File name: Select the destination where the software will create the VHDX file (choose a different disk than the one you are making the image of, or a network path).

Select the disks you want to convert to VHDX. Clearly, if you are doing this to virtualize an operating system, you will have to select the disk where Windows is installed so that it can then start up as a virtual machine.

Click on Create to start the process.

Disk2vhd will make a shadow copy (VSS) of the selected disks and create the respective VHDX image files. Let’s see how to use a Windows image file to boot the system on a Hyper-V virtual machine:

3: Create a new virtual machine on a Hyper-V host

After copying the VHDX file to a Hyper-V server, you can use it as a boot disk of a virtual machine. You must first create a VM using Hyper-V Manager. Run the wizard New – »Virtual Machine in Hyper-V Manager and configure the various parameters (CPU, memory, etc.) according to your needs. On Server 2012 R2 it will also be necessary to specify the VM generation.

4. Connect the VHDX file as a virtual machine disk:

Complete the VM configuration and start it up by right clicking on it and selecting start. The first boot of the machine may take longer since the hardware configuration in the virtualization environment is different from that of the physical machine of origin.

In a few simple steps you have therefore converted a physical machine into a virtual one and you can start Windows without any further intervention.

In addition to Disk2vhd, there are numerous software that allow you to clone a hard disk or perform P2V conversions. One of these is Iperius Backup, which since version 6.0 has introduced a new drive image backup mode, which allows you to clone hard drives and SSDs for both backup and virtualization purposes. Iperius also creates image files in VHD or VHDX format, therefore perfectly compatible with Hyper-V, but also allows you to restore an image backup to another physical spot, by creating a boot disk with the Iperius Recovery Environment®.

How To Turn a Physical Computer Into A Virtual Machine with Disk2vhd

Do you wish there was a hassle free way to migrate physical machines to VMs for testing and consolidation? Today we take a look at Disk2VHD from Sysinternals which is a simple solution for turning physical Windows machines into VM’s–even while they’re up and running.

Running Disk2VHD

Disk2vhd allows you to create a Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) of a physical machine even while the machine is up and running using volume snapshot technology. This small utility doesn’t require installation and you can run it from a flash drive if you want. Just open up the Disk2vhd folder and run the executable.

Agree to the EULA…

Now select the physical drive you want to turn into a VHD, give it a name and location to create and store it. You’ll need to select a location that is large enough to store the VHD you’re creating. In this example we’re creating a VHD from an IBM ThinkPad running XP. Notice the space required under the Volumes to include section shows 6.48GB and the E:\ drive is actually an 8GB travel drive. Also, If you’re creating a VHD from XP or Server 2003 and will be running it on Microsoft Virtual PC, check the box Fix up HAL for Virtual PC. After everything looks correct, click on the Create button.

You’re shown the progress bar while the VHD is created. The XP VHD from an older IBM ThinkPad G40 used for this test took about an hour to complete. The amount of time it takes to create the VHD will vary from system to system.

Setup on Windows Virtual PC

Here we’ll take a look at running the newly created VHD on Virtual PC in Windows 7. We need to create a new machine first, so open Windows Virtual PC from the Start Menu.

In the Virtual Machine folder click on Create virtual machine to launch the wizard.

Name the machine something that helps you identify it, where in this case we gave it the name of the physical machine it came from.

Decide the amount of memory to give to the virtual machine and select network settings.

In the next step of the wizard we need to point to the location of the VHD and click Create.

The created virtual machine will be placed in the Virtual Machines folder.

There are a few things to point out on this XP virtual machine. Because we moved it from another computer, we need to reactivate the XP license.

The new hardware wizard will come up as XP starts pointing out different hardware detected on the virtual machine. We found that cancelling out of those wizards worked the best.

Then we ran Enable Integration Features form the Tools menu on Virtual PC.

A wizard will start on the virtual computer and just follow each step until it’s done, then restart the VM.

After the machine launches from the reboot you can start using it. This example is cool because I’m fond of the ThinkPad for nostalgia sake, and can bring it along with me to other machines.

Conclusion

You can also run the VHDs on Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines on Server 2008, and we successfully ran one on VirtualBox as well. There are a lot of scenarios where Disk2vhd would come in very handy, especially for consolidating older machines into one. It can be used to create images of other machines for testing, without having to worry about damaging them. Also it could be used for simply creating a backup of your computer. It’s completely free, doesn’t require installation, and will create the VHD while the computer is up and running. It will run on Windows XP SP2 and higher.

Want to stay an old Windows or Linux installation around without keeping the hardware around? Convert that physical Windows partition to a virtual disk drive, allowing you else it during a virtual machine program like VMware, Hyper-V, Parallels, or VirtualBox.

Windows ties itself to your computer’s hardware. These tools will create a replica of a physical machine’s state and switch it into a virtual machine, allowing it else within the virtual machine program you favour.

Table of Contents

For VMware – Windows or Linux

• VMware offers a free tool referred to as VMware vCenter Converter. It can convert both Windows and Linux physical machines into VMware virtual machines. You’ll then boot these virtual machines in VMware’s free VMware Player application, which will be a free solution. You’ll also boot it up in VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion.
• Download vCenter Converter from VMware and launch it on the pc you would like to show into a virtual machine. Click the “Convert Machine” button on the toolbar and choose the present, powered-on computer because of the source. Choose a VMware Workstation, VMware Player, or VMware Fusion virtual machine because the destination and configure the choices for the virtual machine.
• The utility will then create a virtual machine from the present Windows system, modifying it to boot properly during a virtual machine program. Save that virtual machine to an external disk drive and boot it abreast of a special computer.

For Microsoft Hyper-V – Windows Only

• Microsoft offers a Disk2vhd tool — one among their many useful SysInternals utilities. This utility will convert a running Windows system to a VHD (virtual hard drive) file to be used in Microsoft’s virtual machine products, like the Hyper-V virtual machine included with professional versions of Windows 8 and eight .1.
• Run this tool on the Windows system you would like to convert. You’ll be ready to select which partitions and drives you would like to incorporate within the VHD file. It’ll create a replica of the running Windows system as a VHD file, and you’ll take that VHD file to a different computer and run it in Hyper-V — the converted physical system should boot up just fine as long as you launch it in Microsoft’s own Hyper-V virtual machine software.

For Parallels – Windows or Linux

• Parallels offer their tool referred to as “Parallels Transporter Agent.” This utility is often installed on either Windows or Linux. It can convert a physical system to a virtual machine to be used within the Parallels virtual machine application for Macs. It can copy the physical machine to a Parallels virtual machine file on a drive. Otherwise, you can transfer it to a Mac running Parallels over an area network.
• Download the Parallels Transporter Agent application from Parallels and run it on your Windows or Linux system. Use the wizard to transfer your current physical PC to an external disk drive or your Mac over the network, choosing exactly what makes it into that virtual machine.

For VirtualBox – A Manual Method

• VirtualBox doesn’t offer a simple graphical utility for converting a physical machine to a virtual machine. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, they offer some unsupported instructions for converting a physical Windows computer to a VirtualBox virtual machine. This needs some registry tweaking and shutting down the pc. You’ll then need to manually create a disk replica and convert it to a VirtualBox VDI file.
• The method for converting a Linux virtual machine should be equivalent without all the additional tweaks required to form Windows behaves. It’s much easier to manoeuvre Linux installations between different machines with different hardware configurations.
• This process isn’t for the faint of heart, and that we include it here just for the sake of completeness. Albeit you employ VirtualBox already, you’ll want only to use VMware or Microsoft’s utility and provides VMware or Hyper-V with a try. If you’re still able to provide it with a try, consult the MIgrate Windows page on VirtualBox’s wiki.
• If you’re converting a Windows PC to a virtual machine, remember that you may encounter licensing issues. Windows Activation may detect that it’s running on a special machine, and you’ll need to contact Microsoft to urge it properly activated. Windows licenses are only alleged to be in use on one computer at a time.

Conclusion

I hope you found this guide useful. If you’ve got any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to use the shape below.

User Questions:

1. What are virtualization technologies?

Virtualization relies on software to simulate hardware functionality and make a virtual computing system. This permits IT organizations to run quite one virtual system – and multiple operating systems and applications – on one server. The resulting benefits include economies of scale and greater efficiency.

1. What is VMware and VirtualBox?

VMware is virtualization software that helps you to run multiple operating systems during a single host. VirtualBox is an Oracle tool to supply host-based virtualization. … Offers virtualization at the hardware level and offers virtualization at both hardware and software levels.

1. Is VMware better than VirtualBox?

VMware vs Virtual Box: Comprehensive Comparison. … Oracle provides VirtualBox as a hypervisor for running virtual machines (VMs) while VMware provides multiple products for running VMs in several use cases. Both platforms are fast, reliable, and include a good array of interesting features.

Every day we can see companies implementing virtual servers to explore the virtualization benefits such as cost reduction, flexibility, automation, and so on.

That’s why physical to virtual migration is still very common and it’s important to make sure that the existing servers running under old and unnecessary hardware can be converted into virtual machines .

In this recipe, you will see how to convert a physical server into a virtual machine using the tool Disk2vhd .

Getting ready

Disk2vhd is not a default Windows tool and it has to be downloaded from the following link: .

The minimal operating system for client conversions is Windows XP SP2 and for server versions is Windows Server 2003. Also, you need to pay attention to the implications caused by licensed software applications such as OEM OSes.

How to do it.

In order to convert physical computers to virtual machines , carry out the following steps:

1. Download and extract the Disk2vhd tool to a temporary folder in the computer you want to convert.
2. Double click on the disk2vhd.exe file and click on Yes if you receive a message from User Account Control . Click on OK on the EULA page.
3. After opening Disk2vhd, select the path in which you want to save the virtual hard drive in VHD File Name , as shown in the following screenshot:

To prevent name and IP conflicts, make sure the old physical computer is not connected on the same network as the new virtual machine .

How it works.

Disk2vhd is a free Microsoft tool that creates a virtual hard disk file from a physical computer. After specifying the destination path and the volumes you want to convert, as shown in the third and the fourth step, the tool uses the Windows Volume Snapshot functionality to create a point-in-time snapshot of the volumes you included in the third step. One of the benefits of Disk2vhd is the ability to convert the physical computer while it’s running.

The seventh step showed a virtual machine being created using the output file from the conversion . After that, it is also important to install the Hyper-V Integration Components. By completing the installation you have finished the conversion , allowing you to start your physical computer decommission.

There’s more.

Disk2vhd is very handy for simple conversions , but if you want to convert lots of physical computers, the best solution is to use System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 with the option Physical to Virtual ( P2V ) conversion , providing a centralized console and with advanced options and configurations.

Converting physical computers to virtual machines using a command line

Disk2vhd also supports the command line interface, allowing you to create scripts to automate both tasks and the conversion .

The command line usage is as follows: disk2vhd .

To convert the C partition into a VHD file in the D partition, the command line is as follows:

Updated: January 15, 2013

Applies To: System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager

Before you begin a physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversion in VMM, we recommend that you do the following:

Run the System Center Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer (VMMCA) on the VMM management server, the destination hosts, and the source computers.

To convert a physical system to a virtual machine

Open the VMs and Services workspace.

On the Home tab, in the Create group, click the Create Virtual Machine drop-down arrow, and then click Convert Physical Machine.

The Convert Physical Server (P2V) Wizard opens.

On the Select Source page, do the following:

• In the Computer name or IP address box, specify a physical computer to convert. You can identify the computer by name or by IPv4 or IPv6 address.

On the Specify Virtual Machine Identity page, enter a virtual machine name and optional description, and then click Next.

On the System Information page, click Scan System to gather information about the physical computer. VMM temporarily installs a VMM agent on the computer to gather system information.

When the scan is complete, click Next to continue.

On the Volume Configuration page, do the following:

1. If desired, clear the check box next to any additional volumes. By default, VMM creates a virtual hard disk for each volume. You cannot clear the check box next to the system or system reserve volume.
2. Accept or modify the VHD Size (MB), VHD Type, or Channel settings.
3. Click the chevron icon next to Conversion Options.
4. In the Conversion Options area, click Online conversion or Offline conversion.
5. If desired, select the Turn off source computer after conversion check box.
6. Click Next to continue.

If you selected offline conversion, on the Offline Conversion Options page, select whether to obtain an IP address automatically, or to use a specific IPv4 or IPv6 address.

If you selected an IPv4 or IPv6 address, enter the relevant information and, if necessary, select the network adapter to bind the address to. Then, click Next.

For either offline or online conversion, do the following:

1. On the Virtual Machine Configuration page, configure the number of virtual processors and the amount of memory for the new virtual machine, and then click Next.
2. On the Select Host page, review the virtual machine host placement ratings, click the desired host, and then click Next.
3. On the Select Path page, specify a storage location on the host for the virtual machine files, and then click Next.
4. On the Select Networks page, configure which logical network, virtual network and VLAN (if applicable) to assign to each virtual network adapter, and then click Next.
5. On the Add Properties page, configure the action to take when the virtual machine host stops or starts, and then click Next.
6. On the Conversion Information page, verify that no issues are detected, and then click Next.

Download Disk2vhd (564 KB)
Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction

Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk – Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk different than ones being converted).

The Disk2vhd user interface lists the volumes present on the system:

It will create one VHD for each disk on which selected volumes reside. It preserves the partitioning information of the disk, but only copies the data contents for volumes on the disk that are selected. This enables you to capture just system volumes and exclude data volumes, for example.

Virtual PC supports a maximum virtual disk size of 127GB. If you create a VHD from a larger disk it will not be accessible from a Virtual PC VM.

To use VHDs produced by Disk2vhd, create a VM with the desired characteristics and add the VHDs to the VM’s configuration as IDE disks. On first boot, a VM booting a captured copy of Windows will detect the VM’s hardware and automatically install drivers, if present in the image. If the required drivers are not present, install them via the Virtual PC or Hyper-V integration components. You can also attach to VHDs using the Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 Disk Management or Diskpart utilities.

Do not attach to VHDs on the same system on which you created them if you plan on booting from them. If you do so, Windows will assign the VHD a new disk signature to avoid a collision with the signature of the VHD’s source disk. Windows references disks in the boot configuration database (BCD) by disk signature, so when that happens Windows booted in a VM will fail to locate the boot disk.

Disk2vhd does not support the conversion of volumes with Bitlocker enabled. If you wish to create a VHD for such a volume, turn off Bitlocker and wait for the volume to be fully decrypted first.

Disk2vhd runs on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and higher, including x64 systems.

Here’s a screenshot of a copy of a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V system running in a virtual machine on top of the system it was made from:

(click image to zoom)

Command Line Usage

Disk2vhd includes command-line options that enable you to script the creation of VHDs. Specify the volumes you want included in a snapshot by drive letter (e.g. c:) or use “*” to include all volumes.

Usage: disk2vhd
Example: disk2vhd * c:\vhd\snapshot.vhd

Physical-to-virtual hard drive migration of a Windows installation is a valid function for customers with Software Assurance and full retail copies of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Software Assurance provides users valuable benefits—please contact Microsoft Corporation for further information. Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 installed by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) using OEM versions of these products may not be transferred to a virtual hard drive in accordance with Microsoft licensing terms.

Download Disk2vhd (564 KB)

The Windows Sysinternals group at Microsoft has released Disk2vhd that is a free physical to virtual converter. Disk2vhd allows you to create VHD (virtual hard dive) files from physical drives on your computer while your system is online. The VHD files generated can be used in Microsoft Virtual PC or on Hyper-V server and you will have an instant clone of your machine running virtually. This is perfect for duplicating a production server for a development virtual machine that you can use on a different computer.

Below is a Microsoft screenshot of a copy of Window Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V system running in a virtual machine on top of the system it was created from.

To get started download the utility from Microsoft by clicking here.

After you have it downloaded, extract the zip file and run disk2vhd.exe.

Now just specify the VHD file name and location and check the drives you want to convert to a VHD. Each physical partition will be saved in a separate VHD file.

Click Create and the process will begin. On my computer it took about 45 minutes to copy the drive into a VHD file because of a large amount of data.

Once completed copy the VHD files to any computer with Microsoft Virtual PC, Hyper-V or any virtualization app that supports VHD files. Then just setup a new virtual machine to point to the existing VHD files.

Read More at Sysinternals

Need to migrate Windows system from physical to virtual machine? Learn 3 best practices for P2V migration from this page.

By Lily / Last update June 9, 2021

Quick Navigation:

What is P2V migration?

P2V (Physical to Virtual) migration is the process of converting and migrating a physical computer image into a virtual machine (VM). It is performed by purpose-built conversion and migration software. The whole process is like this:

1. P2V tools save the physical machine’s state and data as a VM snapshot or image instance.
2. The VM manager or hypervisor tool allocates the required resources (including computing, memory, storage and networking) to the VM.
3. The VM snapshot is reinstalled by the hypervisor on VM’s allocated storage space.

After migration, the VM will have the same state, stored data, applications and required system configuration and resources as the physical machine.

Why do you need P2V migration?

You have learned what P2V migration is and you may want to migrate from physical to virtual machine for following reasons:

● A VM provides a safe test environment. The operations you perform on a VM won’t do harm to your physical machine.
● It requires less hardware, physical space, power consumption and repairs to run a VM than run a physical machine.
● A VM can run on multiple platforms, making P2V a popular way for Mac users to run Windows applications.
● Multiple VMs can run on a single physical machine so that you have different test environments on one computer.

Since P2V migration is advantageous, what are P2V best practices?

How to migrate from physical to virtual machine efficiently?

There are 3 best practices for P2V migration which can be realized by using three wonderful P2V tools. The first one is AOMEI Backuper Professional, the second one is Microsoft Systinternals Disk2vhd, and the last one is System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). I’ll show you how to use them one by one:

Method 1: P2V via AOMEI Backupper Professional

AOMEI Backupper Professional provides you with P2V migration best migration method. With the Universal Restore feature, you can migrate Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista and XP from physical to virtual machine simply, and you won’t worry about boot issues caused by dissimilar hardware after migration.

Before you can restore Windows system image to virtual machine, you should do following things on your physical computer:

1. Create a bootable USB drive to start up the VM. If you are going to restore system image to multiple VMs, please try PXE boot tool to start up all the VMs without repetitively connecting and disconnecting the bootable drive.

2. Backup system to the bootable USB using AOMEI Backupper.

Now follow the steps below to migrate Windows system from physical to virtual machine:

Step 1. Set in the VM console to make the bootable USB flash drive connected to the VM. Boot VM from the USB by changing boot order in BIOS.

Step 2. You’ll see loaded AOMEI Backupper once login. Select “Restore” on the left pane and click “Select image file”.

Step 3. Locate the system image file on the bootable USB drive and click “Next”.

Step 4. Select “Restore this system backup” and tick “Restore system to other location”. Then, click “Next”.

Step 5. Select the hard drive on the VM as the destination path and click “Next”.

Step 6. In the Operation Summary page, tick “Universal Restore” to ensure the system is bootable after restoration. Click “Start Restore” to start P2V migration.

✍ Tips: To migrate Windows Server from physical to virtual machine, please turn to AOMEI Backupper Server.

Method 2: P2V with Microsoft Systinternals Disk2vhd

Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines. It can only convert physical drives to virtual disks. It will not build a VM, nor will it create any configuration. Follow the instructions below to perform P2V migration with Disk2vhd:

1. Run Disk2vhd on your physical computer.

2. Select the volumes you’d like to be included in the VHD. Tick the option “Use Vhdx” and “Use Volume Shadow Copy” based on your needs. Then, click “Create” to create a VHD.

3. Create a VM with the desired characteristics and add the VHD to the VM’s configuration as IDE disk.

Method 3: P2V by System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) is part of the System Center suite. It is Microsoft’s virtual machine support center for Windows-based systems, which aims at helping administrators combine several physical servers within a central virtualized environment. Follow the guidance below to convert a physical machine to virtual machine using SCVMM:

1. Run the SCVMM server and configure it to manage the Hyper-V host which will be hosting your migrated VM.

2. Click “VMs and Services” on the left panel.

3. On the ribbon, click the drop-down for “Create Virtual Machine” and select “Convert Physical Machine”. Then, follow the wizard to convert a physical computer to a VM.

Note: After the P2V migration process is finished, a migrated VM should exist on the Hyper-V host you chose during the P2V migration wizard. You should now disconnect the physical server from your network to prevent accidentally running it while the VM version is running.

To sum up

Three best practices for P2V migration in Windows are shown above. If you want to migrate the operating system to VM without boot issues, you may pick AOMEI Backupper; if you want to create a virtual disk to be used in a VM, you may try Disk2vhd; if you want to combine several physical servers within a central virtualized environment, SCVMM can be the ideal choice.

Actually, AOMEI Backupper is not only a great P2V tool, but also powerful disk cloning software. You may use it as PNY SSD cloning software if you own a PNY SSD. Other common SSD brands are also supported. Don’t hesitate to give it a try!