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I have found lots of guides on how to create a virtual image of a win xp or newer windows, but it eludes me how I can do that with win 2000 server. Anyone have any good input here? I was hoping to end up using virtualbox.

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Can you clarify whether you want to install a virtual machine from scratch or if you would rather convert a currently physical machine to a virtual one? – pacey Nov 25 '10 at 12:44
I want to convert a currently physical machine to a virtual one. – cc0 Nov 25 '10 at 13:39
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VMware Converter version 3 is supported for 2000. Then you may be able to convert from their format to a VirtualBox format.

I run plenty of 2000 VMware images but cannot remember how I made them. Too long ago and too many other servers later.

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Interesting, I am giving that a whirl. Seems it should be entirely doable to convert to vhd after such a process. Thank you. – cc0 Nov 26 '10 at 7:48
Ok, I managed to create a VMDK backup of the win 2000 server harddrive. Then I used the 'vmdk2vhd' tool to convert it to VHD, then I loaded it in VirtualBox. It does start to boot, but it freezes before it loads the windows logo. I tried this on two different computers with different hardware, the same thing happened. I am puzzled as to what the cause could be. – cc0 Nov 29 '10 at 7:23
I booted with the win2k cd, used recovery console to fixboot and fixmbr, no difference. Any suggestions here? – cc0 Nov 29 '10 at 8:53
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Have you tried having a fiddle with the ACPI settings? Windows can sometimes be a little finicky about being uprooted from its original hardware. – Novex Nov 29 '10 at 11:34
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Awesome, this worked! Just enabled IO APIC, that was all I had to do. Thank you Novex! :] – cc0 Nov 29 '10 at 13:55
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up vote 3 down vote

You should read up on the Virtualbox documentation on Migrating Windows Machines.

On creating the LowLevel Image mentioned in the above document I would read up on Imaging your Hard Drive using dd

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The 2nd link there might be helpful, although it's going to be hard to do. It's a server located in a server room with lots of security clearances needed, so if I was to hook up an extra drive to it that would certainly take some effort. But thank you, if it comes down to that I might have to attempt it. Hopefully some other option will come up though, I do have remote access to it. – cc0 Nov 25 '10 at 14:21
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The problem which prevents current software from working with win2k is that most tools uses Windows' Volume Snapshot feature which is present since WinXP – pacey Nov 25 '10 at 14:45
Exactly, therein lies the problem. – cc0 Nov 26 '10 at 7:47
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Disk2vhd by SysInternals The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online

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I believe Symantec's Ghost product can make images that can be run by VMWare

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