How to Convert Physical Machine to Virtual Machine Easily and Quickly

How to Convert a Physical Machine to a VirtualBox Virtual Machine

VirtualBox is a free and open-source hypervisor that can run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Solaris. VirtualBox allows you to create and run virtual machines from various operating systems. To convert a physical machine to a VirtualBox virtual machine, you can use a free tool called VMware vCenter Converter Standalone.

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone is a tool that can convert a physical machine or virtual machine from another format to the VMware format. This VMware format can be used as a hard disk for VirtualBox virtual machines.

Here are the steps to convert a physical machine to a VirtualBox virtual machine with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone:

1. Download VMware vCenter Converter Standalone from the VMware website and install it on the physical machine you want to convert or on another machine connected to the same network.
2. Run “VMware vCenter Converter Standalone” as administrator and click “Convert machine” on the toolbar.
3. On the “Source System” page, select “Powered-on machine” as the source type and select “This local machine” or “A remote machine” depending on the location of the physical machine you want to convert. If you select “A remote machine”, you must enter credentials and network information to connect to that physical machine.
4. On the “Destination System” page, select “VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine” as the destination type and select “VMware Workstation 10.x” or higher as the destination product. Specify the location and folder name for the virtual machine files to be created.
5. On the “Options” page, you can adjust virtual machine settings such as CPU count, memory size, disk controller type, and disk partition you want to convert. You can also enable or disable features such as Installing VMware Tools, Customizing guest preferences, and Reconfigure destination virtual machine.
6. Click “Finish” to start the conversion process. This process can take a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the size of the disk or partition you are converting.
7. After the conversion process is complete, copy the created VM folder to the physical machine running VirtualBox or to a shared storage location if you are using VirtualBox on multiple machines.
8. Open “VirtualBox” on the physical machine running VirtualBox, or connect to VirtualBox via Remote Desktop or SSH.
9. Click “Machine > Add” and navigate to the “.vmx” file located inside the virtual machine folder you copied earlier. The “.vmx” file is a VMware virtual machine configuration file that can be read by VirtualBox.
10. Click “Open” to add the virtual machine to the list of VirtualBox virtual machines. You may need to adjust virtual machine settings such as chipset type, boot mode, and network type according to your preferences.
11. Run your new virtual machine.

Conclusion

Converting a physical machine into a virtual machine is a smart move to increase the flexibility, efficiency, and scalability of your IT environment. By following this guide, you can easily make the conversion without any problem. Remember to always back up your data before converting to avoid unwanted data loss.