Should I be able to boot a .vhd converted from .tib file ?
I have created various .vhd files from .tib image files using the Backup Conversion tool in TI2013.
It is my understanding that I should be able to create a Windows Virtual PC or Virtualbox Virtual Machine pointing at the .vhd file and boot it.
I have been in touch with tech support and understand that I need space on the drive to accommodate the FULL size of the original partition that was imaged, or at least I do with Windows Virtual PC. I imaged a 64GB partition, so made sure I had that amount of free space ( plus a whole lot more ) on the drive I was working on.
I tried creating .tib files of all partitions on the source drive and also of just the C: partition, with no different results. The virtual machines always start and sit stuck at a black screen.
I know there are no parameters I can adjust in the conversion process, but is there something I need to be doing differently with the original .tib creation to let a bootable .vhd be created ?
Any other method to get a .tib into a bootable virtual machine format would also be welcome. I also looked at the VMware Standalone Converter 5.0.1 but this doesn't support the latest .tib format.
Thanks,
Nigel
Sadly no, as I have tried all those steps, and being a year old a lot of the information in that thread is no longer valid / correct. But thanks for the suggestion.
Nigel,
I just tried this and it worked perfectly. I had an image of an early Windows 8 Comsumer Preview system. I used TI 2013 in a current Windows 8 system to convert the tib file to a vhd file. I attached the new vhd file to an existing VM in Virtual Box in a Windows 8 host. The Virtual Box VM used the SATA controller for the hard drives. It may be of interest to note the original Windows 8 system (that the tib file was created from) used a SATA contoller as well. I moved the new vhd drive (with the converted tib file) to port 0 in the VM. The other 2 hard drives in the VM were moved to ports 2 and 3. I started the VM and Windows 8 successfully booted and ran setup to detect new hardware devices. I checked the activation status and Windows was activated. If I had used a released version of Windows, it would have needed to be reactivated with a new product ID.
Thanks, Mustang.
If I know that it can be done, I just need to spend more time getting it to work. I especially need to look at those port settings, as previously I just checked the controller settings.
Would it matter if the guest ( where I created the .tib ) was Win 7 64 bit and the host is Win 7 32 bit ? Both have SATA controllers.
Nige.
Nige,
To answer your question, it is possible that having a 64 bit guest is causing your problem. In my case it was a 32 bit guest. There are a number of things to think about here. When Acronis converts the tib file to a vhd they are injecting drivers for hard drive controllers into the resulting Windows system in an effort to make it boot in different VMs. If your new vhd is the first hard drive in the VM, then it means Acronis did not put the correct HDD controller driver for your VM in the vhd.
If I were you, I would try a different approach. I would try to do a Universal Restore of the original tib file to the VM. This would require the tib file to be available to the recovery environment running TI 2013. Are you able to get USB support to work in your VM? You can try booting the VM with the Acronis Linux recovery disk and see if a USB HDD is visible. You can also try booting the VM with a WinPE recovery disk. With Virtual Box, I needed to add the extension pack to Virtual Box and enable USB 2.0 support before WinPE would see my USB external drive connected to the host.
That's interesting about the driver injection, although I have since tried with 32 bit host and guest with similar results.
I like the suggestion for restoring the .tib into the VM.
What I am trying to achieve is to prove to customers ( on CP, Vista and 7 ) that have just purchased TI that I can recreate their machine from the .TIB file and get them up and running. At the moment, I swap disks to bare metal, boot from recovery and actually do the restore.
I was just trying to work out if I could give the same level of confidence on the backup but take less time by some sort of VM manipulation.
N