Arch Linux

nankura

Member

Registered: 2011-08-02

Posts: 166

Virtual Machine Image

Hey guys

i was wondering if theres a guide to making a complete VM Image of my KDE Archlinux installation on the hard disk /dev/sdc on my pc, so  that i can run it in a virtual machine without having to resetup everything

Spider.007

Member

Registered: 2004-06-20

Posts: 1,175

Re: Virtual Machine Image

I think not, but it is quite easy. Boot from a recovery CD, create an image and store it somewhere. Do you have an external disk large enough, or some remote storage you want to push it to. Or maybe just a local disk? All it would take is executing `dd` with the correct options

Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 4,092

Re: Virtual Machine Image

just dd /dev/sdc to the vm image, or much better, partion the vm image and just copy in the actual data insted. Then just tweak the initcpio etc and boot the vm.

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nankura

Member

Registered: 2011-08-02

Posts: 166

Re: Virtual Machine Image

ok im a little confused your talking to a noobie here. ive only ever used VM in windows 7. i dont even have VM installed on linux or not that im aware of. so i do have external space

so i need a recovery cd? i have cd's for multiple distros, one for archbang and CTKArch. but im not sure if they will work

and then i put dd /dev/sdc in the terminal?

nankura

Member

Registered: 2011-08-02

Posts: 166

Re: Virtual Machine Image

Hey guys

ok ive read the wiki and i do understand abit more now about disk cloning

But im wondering how id go about achieving my goal

basically

I have windows 7 on /dev/sdb
and archlinux on /dev/sdc

I want to make a clone of /dev/sdc, an image, and put it /dev/sdb, and then convert that image, or find a way to use in VirtualBox in windows 7 without curropting my windows 7 MBR or installation

so what would be the best way to achieve this

basically what im asking is like. when you use dd and save the image as .img.gz , do you restore it the same way in a virtualbox, since VM would have different partitions etc. or can i save the file as a .vdi and would that work

so like how would i get that dd image to work in virtualbox

Last edited by nankura (2011-08-15 02:55:41)

thisoldman

Member

From: Pittsburgh

Registered: 2009-04-25

Posts: 1,172

Re: Virtual Machine Image

Googling "migrate linux to virtualbox" might help.

fsckd

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2009-06-15

Posts: 4,173

Re: Virtual Machine Image

Merged. nankura, please don't open duplicate threads and read this please: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Forum_Etiquette

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