I have a POS (point of sales) system on which is installed Windows XP. The original computer no longer works — the computer no longer works but the hard drive works 100% fine — and I wish to virtualize it in order to take advantage of the security of modern operating systems and to be able to use it again. How can I do so?
Asked
Active
Viewed 3,459 times
2 Answers
0
The operating system usually has to be running to covert it to a virtual machine. You had said originally the disk was not running or readable, so this idea likely will not work. For reference, you need to run an Windows XP version of the converter app offered by your choice of virtualizing app. (I use VMware and the most modern VMware Converter does not support Windows XP).
You might wish to read this other answer on Super User that explains how to convert a hard disk alone to a VM and see if it helps.
Alternative Approach
This is an alternative way (not a direct answer to your issue).
- Get your data base and anything else you may need from your disks (recovery) or from a backup you might have.
- Purchase an XP Pro License - eBay and generally inexpensive. Use VMware Workstation Pro on a good, fast Windows 10 Pro machine with - good, fast SSD drive.
- Set up an XP Pro guest, install your software and the database.
This accomplishes your objective in a different, yet very robust way.
Giacomo1968
- 58,727
0
I know this question's a year and a half old but I figured this could help other people who are struggling with converting their offline or broken PC's into a Virtual Machine aka P2V.
Despite what others have said, no the OS does not need to be running for you to be able to P2V. This is especially so if it's something as old as an XP Desktop. I just got done P2V'ing a bunch of dead OEM Dell Desktops and you wouldn't believe the amount of people telling me that what I was trying to do just wasn't possible. The desktops all had perfectly good hard drives and I was able to salvage them after an enormous amount of trial and error just by using the hard drive alone. In the end it's pretty simple.
TL;DR:
- Connect the HDD to a working PC using a USB adapter
- Convert to VHD using Disk2vhd (or the converter of your choice)
- Plug that Virtual Hard Disk into VirtualBox (or the hypervisor of your choice) and make sure to turn on the I/O APIC option in the VMs System settings tab before you boot up.
- At this point the only thing that might give you some hiccups will be some HDD compatibility issues with your hypervisor, and the dreaded Windows Product Activation (WPA). Luckily both can easily be defeated with a little research.
Here's what worked for me:
1: I had to convert the HDD to a disk image, and to do that it I had to connect it to an already up and running PC. The problem is if you're working with modern workstations there's really no way to pop these big boys into your set up without the use of an adapter. So go buy yourself an adapter and make sure it's the right one for your HDD. Different hard drives require different adapters for their power supply so don't overlook this like I did. They're pretty inexpensive so it's not a major issue if you purchase the wrong one.
2: While you convert using Disk2vhd, the only option that seemed to work for me was turning on 'For Use in Virtual PC' and leaving the other 2 options options turned off. These other options are used in situations where the PC you're converting is up and running. Just leave those off and convert.
3: Once you're done converting the HDD to the disk image of your choice, plug that file into your Virtual Machine. There will be an option to use an existing Virtual Hard Disk during set up so make sure you point it to the VHD you just created. Now the most important step, and the one that lead me down a rabbit hole of frustration because this thing is set to off by default in VBox. Make sure you turn ON the I/O APIC option in the VMs System settings tab before you boot up. If you don't do this you'll go crazy trying to figure why your VM isn't booting and it'll take you on a path of Windows ISO archives, trying to repair your OS with many different discs, incompatibility issues once you do find one that actually works well with your VHD, and just an all around mess that you do not want to go through. Trust me, I now have a 50 gig folder filled with Windows ISOs that can back me up.
4: It should be smooth sailing from here. If you come across 0X0000007B error or errors that lead you to blue screens just search your error code on google and you'll find many different threads walking you through exactly how to fix them. Then the problem that most people will come across after they've gotten their VM to boot up: Windows Product Activation. If you try and log on and it immediately prompts you with a window asking you if you'd like to activate now or later, this is WPA. If you're lucky it will give you a 30 day grace period to activate. If you're me it'll immediately lock you out if you choose to activate later. For this there's AntiWPA .
All you have to do is load that into a USB stick and run it in safe mode. First make sure to go to your VM's Port tab, then the USB settings tab and give it permissions to use/detect the USB stick by clicking the little plus sign and choosing your USB. From here you just leave your USB stick plugged in but eject it from your host machine through your onscreen option. If you're on a Mac you do this by opening Finder and clicking the eject button next to your USB. If you're on Windows the option should be on the taskbar to your lower right. Ejecting it will give your VM the ability to detect your usb drive. Now boot up your VM in safe mode (with command prompt). In Vbox it's a little tricky but just spam F8 on start up. You'll get it eventually. Hit enter on safe mode with command prompt, log in as Admin, ignore all the dissimilar hardware pop ups and use the command prompt to run explorer.exe . You might have to restart once since your VM is trying to install all the necessary drivers to work with it's new environment. Just restart and come back to where we left off in safe mode. Once your task bar has launched head over to My Computer and if you don't see your USB stick check to make sure it hasn't reconnected with your host machine. If it has just eject it the same way you did previously and wait. If it still doesn't connect check your 'Devices' tab (top bar if you're on a Mac) and make sure your USB stick has a checkmark next to it. Once it's connected open your USB drive and find AntiWPA and run it. It'll run some commands for you and it shouldn't take more than a few seconds to finish up. When it's done just exit command prompt. Go to your start button and restart from there.
That's it. After you've done all of this you'll probably notice that the UI is a bit laggy and the screen res a little clunky. Vbox needs to install some drivers to smooth things out for you so just insert VirtualBoxs Guest Additions CD by going to the Devices tab and just follow the installation process. That should speed things up for you. I hope this helps someone who needed it.
