Operating Systems @beehaw.org Seathru @beehaw.org 1 yr. ago

Any tips/tricks for cloning an existing operating system (Win10) to run in a VM?

I have a laptop with obsolete, licensed diagnostic software that I use on old equipment still in service. I've kept it alive longer than it should have been, but it's only a matter time before a disk or mobo failure puts me in a bad spot.

I'd like to make a clone of the current OS (Windows 10) as-is that could be run in VirtualBox or some other VM as a backup. Is it as simple as making a disk image with DD and then loading that up in VirtualBox? I'm sure it's not, but what am I overlooking? Or what other software would be better to use?

I'm fairly computer literate, but a mechanic by trade; So, not an expert.

Thanks for any help.

5 comments

The search term you want to use is P2V or Disk2VHD which is also the name of a Microsoft tool for that purpose.
- Thanks, I'll look into that.
  
  You might also look into the built in tool that Windows 10 has for doing an image level backup of the system.
  
  Here's a page that walks you through a system image backup.
You can pass thought your drive to your vm and should be able to boot from it
I only have experience with Linux systems, but it seems GParted (the program I use to modify and create partitions) also works outside of the Linux environment. So, here's an open source option.

Also, you should make more backups before trying to clone the drive. There's some recommended backup programs on the GParted website.

Good luck!