Create and Convert your Microsoft Windows PC Desktop to a Hyper-V Managed VM Mountain Computers MTNCOMP GGPCTU 775-287-9552

I wanted to retire a legacy Alienware Aurora computer that had been my main system running for nearly 7 years, and I wanted to transfer it to my newly upgrade AMD Ryzen 5950X from a 3950X and instead of a drive move, I decided on a move to a virtual machine on my 5950X.

My Alienware had all my Quick Books, Email, Adobe CS4, Office 2019 pro, software development, website source code, and more, etc. I would remote to my Alienware computer sitting in my lab from my other workstation on a daily basis to do accounting, email, classic development of older clients, and some utilities.

So I had to find a method to transfer the system from a PC to a virtual image. Well, after 1 hour of searching, I found the necessary steps.

1. Use Disk2VHD* to create a VHDX image on the Alienware system (~350GB image) to an external 1TB drive.

2. Use Oracle Virtual Box management utility to convert the VHDX to a VHD on the 1TB external drive to an internal 16TB drive on my new system.

4. Retire the Alienware system yet keep it close and if all goes well, recycle it in 3-6 months.

5. Backup and protect the new VM host (~350GB) and probably clean it up and compress and optimize it.

Then specify the volumes you wish to convert and the utility DISKPART will help you identify your volumes to include in your OS drive C:. Then click create and for 358GB it took 8 hours. I attached a 1TB external drive on a drive dock and called the VHDX image my system name.

One the above was complete, I removed the 1TB external and brought it over to my 5950X system and plugged it into another drive dock that I have and launched an administrative command prompt, and identified my source and target locations for the VHDX to VHD conversion.

At this point, I launched Virtual Box and added this machine and completed the CPU core and RAM specifications to match my old system and launched it and HUNG! crap. just a black screen with a letter 'j'. After two hours of research, nada, so I did what anyone else would do, I punted.

I switched up and enabled Hyper V Manager and imported the VHD and voila! It took like 20 minutes for Hyper V to process the VHD and voila it booted. I checked the RAM and it was dynamic at 3GB, and so I set it at 8GB and then changed the CPU cores from 16 it wanted to use back to 8 cores.

After a few successful boots and reboots, I checked my software for any issues, and Adobe CS4 was fine, Windows 10 Pro was fine, Microsoft Office 2019 Pro requested re-activation and it worked. Everything else was fine. Hyper V Manager was slow for this 358GB VHD so I added a 2TB Samsung 980 NVMe to my system, and transferred the VHD from the 16TB platter drive to the 2TB NVMe and boot times went from 3 minutes to 20 seconds.

That was fun. Now I can retire the Alienware Aurora system or donate it to a good cause. A nice little two day mini-project and all ends well with good planning.

In the postmortem, I will continue to see how to get Oracle Virtual Box to support my VHD yet right now I need my decommissioned main system to work, and Hyper-V worked while I had hoped Oracle Virtual Box to hold my core systems. Alas, do what works, and continue on.

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Create and Convert your Microsoft Windows PC Desktop to a Hyper-V Managed VM

by Mountain Computers Inc, Publication Date: Saturday, September 23, 2023

View Count: 662, Keywords: Microsoft, Hyper-V, Oracle, Virtual Box, Desktop, Hashtags: #Microsoft #Hyper-V #Oracle #VirtualBox #Desktop

if you found this article helpful, consider contributing $10, 20 an Andrew Jackson or so..to the author. more authors coming soon

FYI we use paypal or patreon, patreon has 3x the transaction fees, so we don't, not yet.