[infowarrior]

Hi there -

Anyone have an easy way to take a Windows 2000 (or XP) - based laptop and convert it into a disk image that can be read by Virtual PC?

My new workplace is unfortunately Wintel-centric and wants me to convert to the dark side. Fat chance of that happening.

I figure if I can image the stuff and settings in their standard Windows laptop build and then use VPC to access it on my Powerbook, I can avoid lugging the P.O.S. Toshiba laptop they're planning on sending me and stay on my secure, trustworthy Panther-based Powerbook.

Thanks for any info on-board or off-board.

-rick
...nervous about switching if he doesn't have to

[cowicide]

I've actually read somewhere how to do this. I think it was somewhere on Microsoft's support site. I did a search and couldn't find it now, though... Gawd, Microsoft support SUCKS.

Anyway, I know it at least used to be possible to do this... unfortunately the actual proceedure seems to be missing from the Microsoft VPC manual and website.

Wish I could be more help. If it turns up somewhere, I'll post the directions here-Good luck! Cow

P.S. If I remember correctely, I think you'll basically need to mount the PC's hard drive to your Mac by changing it's mode somehow then use VPC's assistant to image it. I kinda remember something about making a blank VPC images and copying everything into there too... dammit, I read it way too long ago to remember specifics... grumble.

[va3uxb]

Just wondering if anyone has come across instructions to do this?

I've just got VPC (6.1.1), and want to copy my old Win95 laptop into a virtual PC image to use on my iBook G4 (12", Panther, 640MB). I did a search here, and on Google, and couldn't find any instructions on how to do it.

I've tried putting the Windows hard drive in a USB enclosure, mounted that, and copied the contents into a blank virtual image but it wouldn't boot, it just gave me the 'no OS' error.

Thanks!

[chabig]

I suspect you'll need to use Windows software to clone the Windows 2000 PC. Instead of looking for Mac software, search the PC sites. Find a program that runs under Windows (on Virtual PC) that will image a mounted PC volume and clone it onto another hard drive (Virtual PC Disk Image).

Chris

[powerbook867]

One app you could try is Ghost 2000. It is a great app in that it creates an image and then can burn it spanned over multiple cd's. I used to be a Wintel administrator and it worked like a champ. I would Imagine that booting VPC with a bootable ghost cd image in the drive would work...hope this helps!!

[Person Man]

Originally posted by infowarrior:
I figure if I can image the stuff and settings in their standard Windows laptop build and then use VPC to access it on my Powerbook, I can avoid lugging the P.O.S. Toshiba laptop they're planning on sending me and stay on my secure, trustworthy Panther-based Powerbook.

Even if you converted the laptop hard drive to an image, it may not run correctly under Virtual PC. There will be a lot of Toshiba-specific stuff on the image that will not work under VPC because the PC that VPC emulates is quite "generic," if you will. The version of Windows on the laptop may not even run either.

Your best bet is to buy Virtual PC with whatever OS your company uses, and then to ask them if they would let you install their stuff yourself on your own laptop (DON'T tell them it's not a PC laptop... they may categorically deny you by saying it won't work!)

[CharlesS]

I don't know much about VPC, but is there any way to convert a .dmg to a VPC image? Because if there is, it's not too hard to get a .dmg of a hard drive - all you have to do is copy the raw blocks from the /dev entry to a file, and you get a .dmg.

[Person Man]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
I don't know much about VPC, but is there any way to convert a .dmg to a VPC image? Because if there is, it's not too hard to get a .dmg of a hard drive - all you have to do is copy the raw blocks from the /dev entry to a file, and you get a .dmg.

Not that I'm aware of.

But once you have the .dmg, you could mount it and share it under VPC as a shared item. Then you could copy the contents of the image onto a new VPC image.