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I am attempting to migrate a Windows XP Home installation from a physical machine to a virtual machine. The physical machine has two hard disks; the first is 250GB containing the "C:", the second is 1TB containing "D:". I'd like to create a new virtual machine stored on the D:, which is a copy of the Windows XP Home installation that is currently on the C:.

(This will leave the 250GB drive clear for me to install a fresh copy of Windows 7, and still be able to access the old XP installation if necessary.)

  • The first method I tried was to follow the instructions from the VirtualBox wiki.

    I booted up from an Ubuntu Live CD in order to execute the Linux commands whilst the Windows system wasn't running.

    With this method the virtual machine would always blue screen on startup with a STOP 0x0000007B message. The instructions above say to try a "repair install" using the Windows XP disc. Unfortunately for me my XP disc is scratched and will not boot so I was unable to try a repair install.

  • The second method I tried was to use "VMWare Converter Standalone Client". This tool executed without any errors, but again produced a virtual machine that blue screens on startup with the same STOP message.

Are there any other methods to move the Windows XP installation into a virtual machine?

I think next I will try some more manual process to create the cloned virtual machine. I think I will try installing a fresh copy of Windows XP to a virtual machine, then once that is booting OK I will ntfsclone the source C: partition over the top. Perhaps this will fix the booting problems if the issue is related to the MBR or partition table in some way.

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  • The physical hard drives were PATA or SATA? And the virtual hard drives, PATA or SATA? This sounds like you mixed them (PATA windows install to a virtual SATA installation.)
    – James Watt
    Apr 18, 2010 at 14:31
  • The physical machine is SATA. Initially my virtual clones were PATA (both VirtualBox and VMWare). I tried changing both the clones to SATA but the bluescreen remained.
    – pauldoo
    Apr 18, 2010 at 20:47

2 Answers 2

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The partition table and MBR are probably OK. I'm guessing the drivers are not compatible with the virtual machine.

Get a Windows XP disc that is working - I'm guessing you can repair without the original. You might get a substitute from the place where you bought your computer or loan it from a friend.

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  • Loaning a CD from a friend and doing a repair install worked a treat. I now have a problem related to activation, but at least the BSOD is fixed.
    – pauldoo
    Apr 20, 2010 at 8:37
  • What do you do once you have the disc? How do you install the drivers? Sep 14, 2022 at 1:50
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The Windows 7 blue screen error is usually caused by hardware drivers problems.

I have seen this many times when converting Windows XP & 7 using vCenter Converter. Though the easy solution is that vCenter converter now includes a Configure machine option that can help fix this problem with ease in no time.

If you have no problem with using VMware Workstation or VMware Player then you can use that. For more info on this you can check my post at: vCenter Converter & Windows 7 7B error

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    Welcome to Super User! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.
    – slhck
    Jun 5, 2012 at 8:18

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