image tool: REAL HD --> virtual.hdd

[catmistake]

First of all, your software rules. Its easy to use, and it does what its supposed to well.

There is, however, one function missing... and including it just seems so blatently obvious to me.

From the Parallels Image Tool, why can't I convert a real, physical HD to a virtual .hdd file? I would guess that there's many Win users out there, that when they bought a new computer, just kept the HD from their previous machine. Why, when migrating, do I have to mess around with the old computer?

This functionality would be incredibly useful for Parallels Desktop for Mac, because Macs can read FAT16, FAT32, & NTFS.

This is how it should work:
I've pulled my hard drive from my old WinDell machine (and thrown the Dell off the roof or into a swift flowing river) and I've put the HD in a usb/firewire enclosure, or I'm using a bridge. OS X mounts this like a champ, regardless of the native fs. I launch the Parallels Image Tool, and it gives me an option to image from an actual hard drive as the source (or a folder on the Mac HD). I choose my old windows bootable hard drive, and pick a destination to create the new virtual.hdd image. Now I launch Parallels Desktop, and I create a new machine, but choose the new virtual.hdd image instead of creating a new blank one. No installation necessary.

Why all this connecting old computer to new computer over a network? Running some migration utility from the legacy machine is counter-productive and counter-intuitive. Just seems so unnecessary to me.

Plz add this ability! Thanks.

[catmistake]

And... why not be able to go from virtual.hdd --> real HD, at least for the free OSs, would be really really cool. It would be wonderful to be able to create a virtual install that can be migrated to a real machine.

[catmistake]

The more I think about it, because its obvious this technology exists and it would be incredibly useful to IT, the more I want it.

Req:
Allow Parallels to install a virtual machine to a real HD w/o using a file for a virtual disc, but an actual file system on the drive... allow Parallels to boot a vm from an external HD (rather than a virtual HD file on an external drive).

[SteveRichards]

You can try the DFSee.
http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/index.php

It does what you suggest, image the physical drive to the .hdd
It is what I used to image my OS2 HPFS drives.

Runs on Win/LINUX/DOS/OS2 but not OSX...
You can create a bootable CD containing DFSee and use it to image the physical drive.

[Andrew @ Parallels]

catmistake,
Please check out Parallels Transporter which is part of Parallels Desktop. As far as I understand it is able to do exactly what you are asking for.

[Gene Bowman]

This is along the same things that I would like to do, with one caveat: I just purchased a new Mac Pro to replace my Windows PC. What I would like to do is take out my boot drive from my PC, which has all of my applications and data on, and physically install it in the Mac and then set it up as the virtual drive for Parallels. Is this possible?

Thanks for your help

[Alicia]

Hello,

Gene Bowman, the operation you want to do seems to be impossible to perform the way you described it, but you can transfer all your data and applications using Transporter.
You are welcome for more info.

Best Regards,
Alicia

[keybounce]

From the Parallels Image Tool, why can't I convert a real, physical HD to a virtual .hdd file?

This is how it should work:
I've put the HD in a usb/firewire enclosure, or I'm using a bridge. OS X mounts this like a champ, regardless of the native fs. I launch the Parallels Image Tool, and it gives me an option to image from an actual hard drive as the source (or a folder on the Mac HD). I choose my old windows bootable hard drive, and pick a destination to create the new virtual.hdd image.

I managed this. See http://forum.parallels.com/showpost....01&postcount=8