Have you ever needed to convert Microsoft's Virtual Disk or .vhd files to Vmware's format, namely .vmdk or vice versa? WinImage maybe a solution for you. I don't work for WinImage or receive a commission but this product definitely saved me during a recent conversion.
The Setup
I received 3 .VHD files that were from a Microsoft 2008 Hyper-V implementaiton on a USB portable drive. The files totaled approximately 50GB and any conversion and uploading was going to take a while since they resided on this USB drive but that was the least of my worries. Since I did not have the configuration (.vmc) file, using Vmware's converter was not an option. The converter needs the .vmc for MS Virtuals or the .vmx file for Vmware Virtuals to import or convert the virtual machine into ESX or another Vmware platform.
WinImage to the rescue, partially
Do you ever wonder what we did before Google? Today Google's search engine is a life saver in the IT community because I was able to "google" for conversion options from VHD to VMDK and WinImage was one of the results. Best of all, a 30-day, fully functional eval was available. After downloaded and installing the application, the software converted my files to VMDK files in a few hours...50 GB takes a while.
Vmware Desktop to the rescue
Next involved a few trial and error attempts at uploading the VMDK files, attaching them to a new virtual machine which kept failing. Sometimes I would receive the "drive is inconsistent" or other times I received an error for a value out of range. Failed attempts at tweaking the converted .vmdk configuration files and various BusLogic/LSILogic combinations did not work either. Finally, I decided to determine if I could open the virtual machine using Vmware Desktop.
On the first attempt, I was asked to "upgrade my virtual disk" of which I said "no". Since these files were my only copy, I did not want to chance anything for fear of another 2-3 hours to convert again. As I waited anxiously for the VM to boot, I was greeted with the BSOD!!! Ug!!! On the second try, I said "yes" to upgrading my disk and I was able to boot and login locally to the virtual machine!! Voila!!
Vmware Converter
Once the virtual machine was off and a .VMX file was created, using Vmware Converter to import the virtual was the easy part. After another 3.5 hours via USB and a whopping 10/100 switch to slow me down, the virtual machine was successfully converted, imported and running.
Tech notes
I have read that the "guest" tools need to be uninstalled before converting but I am not sure of this. Microsoft's guest software was still installed on the .VHD files so that may have caused an issue with Vmware Converter once the initial .VMDK files were created. However, WinImage helped tremendously and is now part of my Virtualization ToolKit.
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