Cloning a VM disk file to a physical drive
Can ATI's disk cloning feature copy a VMware or Virtual Box virtual disk file (vmdk or vdi format) and clone it, using raw data transfer bit by bit, to a physical disk connected externally via USB? I have some old 2 GB NEXTSTEP VM disks in vmdk and vdi formats that I'd like to copy to a physical disk so I can use it them in my vintage IBM ThinkPad. the physical disks will be IDE devices connected via a USB adapter. I have access to Windows 10 and Mac computers to perform this operation on, in case the host OS matters. After the cloning, the physical disk should end up using the MBR partitioning scheme with one NEXTSTEP partition on it whose partition type identifier (flag) ought to be A7.
I downloaded the product to try this out, but it says I have to buy the product to activate the disk cloning feature and I'm not willing to buy the product unless the disk cloning feature does what I have in mind, so appreciate any input on this.
I'm also looking at Clonezilla Live CD and also a product called Vmdk2Phys, as alternatives.


- Accedi per poter commentare

Steve, as you know this is not an area I am familiar with, so my thinking may be a bit off. If you do a backup of the virtual machine, can that backup be restored to a physical drive rather than a virtual machine. ,,,
Ian
- Accedi per poter commentare

IanL-S wrote:Steve, as you know this is not an area I am familiar with, so my thinking may be a bit off. If you do a backup of the virtual machine, can that backup be restored to a physical drive rather than a virtual machine. ,,,
Ian
Ian, in principle you can create a VM and install ATI in the Windows OS in that VM and make backups from within the VM that can be stored on an external drive. I do this in the VM's I am using for the ATI 2021 Beta so that I can test both Backup & Recovery.
The issue here is 'what OS is used for these 2GB NEXTSTEP VM's that have IDE disks' and that the OP wants to recover to a vintage IBM Thinkpad? Is this Windows and if so, what version? Maybe XP, 2000, NT, 98 or 95 or ME?
If the vintage IBM Thinkpad is like my own T42, then it also has a Non-PAE processor which makes using any recent Acronis Rescue Media a challenge due to Acronis dropping support for such processors, though that can be overcome when using the Linux version of the media and using 'forcepae' as a kernel parameter.
Assuming that the OP can setup a working 2GB NEXTSTEP VM on his host Windows 10 computer, and can either install a version of ATI that will run in that VM OS, or else can get the VM to boot from an .ISO of an Acronis Rescue Media and make a ATI backup image. Then there is the issue of recovering that image to an IDE drive which would need to be installed within the Thinkpad.
It is 'possible' to do but whether the Thinkpad will boot from the recovered VM OS without needing additional device drivers is a different question? I have doubts that Acronis Universal Restore will recognise the NEXTSTEP OS as a valid Windows OS to be able to inject device drivers unless it was designed to work with the version of Windows being used, which means it would have to probably be a very old version of ATI going back over 10 years plus.
- Accedi per poter commentare

Thanks Steve, I suspected there could be some major difficulties in doing so.
Ian
- Accedi per poter commentare