How to migrate VM in hdd image to a partition

Z

ZoltánS

Bit poster
Hi, I've got a Parallels Desktop 5 which runs a Windows 7. This virtual machine is in a hdd file and plan to move it to an external HDD - I hope both OS X and Parallels I/O performance will be improved.
The guest OS doesn't have to be Boot Camp bootable (it simply doesn't deserve it, it's just an annoyance for me anyway)
I'd like to know how to do it, if it's possible.

Regards,

Zoltan
 
Well, if it's still actual I guess the easiest way would be to format your second drive as HFS+ (MacOs file system), and then just copy the *.pvm bundle with your VM to that new drive.
 
You can't boot Boot Camp from an external disk anyway on most if not all Macs. Is the external disk Fire Wire or USB or eSATA? Only eSATA can match the speed of the internal drive but moving Windows off your internal disk will benefit Mac OS X.

I read that Parallels runs slightly faster from an .hdd file than from a Boot Camp partition. I don't know if it's still true or if it was actually tested with bench marks:
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=92835

Parallels does not mount .hdd's as media so utilities like Disk Utility can't convert it to a disk image, or copy partitions, etc. I think you can convert the .hdd to a disk image manually using the technique described at http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=104103 in reverse order though. Then you can try using Disk Utility to copy the partition or you could use Winclone. If those don't work then you could use dd to copy to a partition.

Another way that might work is to duplicate the .hdd and use it as hard disk 2. Use the external disk as hard disk 3 (maybe have the partitions already setup). Then use a PC disk duplicating utility in Windows to copy the Windows partition to the external disk.
 
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