Load Windows 7 image created by Windows (not Acronis, Ghost, etc.) to Virtualbox VM

Question

I made an image, and used Windows 7 "Create system image" in Windows Backup and Recovery. I load it just fine on many other computers, it is a good image with many steps in creating it.

How can I get this image loaded onto/into Virtualbox and create a VM for it?

I have paid for Acronis software if I can somehow do it with that, too.

I do not have any current computers with this image loaded on them.

Update: I do have this image saved to a network location. When trying to load, it gets like 99% done and tells me image cannot be restored due to some registry thing. I will copy the error down the next time. The virtual hard drive is the same size (120GB SSD) as the image drive it was originally made on.

Answer 1

You'll need to boot off a windows recovery cd from within virtualbox (attach recovery iso image as CD/DVD). But the windows image will need to be accessible from that environment. One way, is to use another virtualbox client (grab ubuntu livecd for quick and easy source). Create a 2nd empty virtual drive with the existing client. Using the client's mapped drive, copy the windows image to the 2nd drive. Stop this session. Move this 2nd virtual drive to your new empty client (still as a second drive). Then when windows recovery starts up, point it to this 2nd drive for the source image.

Answer 2

Found a completely free solution.

I log into the computer I want to image, use Microsoft's disk2VHD program, (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx) then load that VHD as a hard disk in Virtualbox. I've only had luck when doing the following steps:

1. Load into Virtbox as usual.
2. Settings->System ->Chipset: ICH9 Storage ->Right click and Remove SATA Controller (including hard drive)

Right click IDE Controller and "Add Hard Disk" Choose existing disk Make sure "Use host I/O cache" is checked and click "OK"

Then load the VM as usual, make any changes, and from that VM, use Windows "Create system image" to make an image that you can load on most any PC.