Another Free-P2V solution hits the streets

osde.info of the forums has been busy building his own P2V solution. Here’s what he says:

“If you were wowed by Player you’ll be blown over by the now also free-of-charge Server which includes VMTools."

I’ve also

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just discovered another set of free software gnu gpl open source non-proprietary P2V software (like G4L and G4U) that helps you clone disks from physical to virtual. It's called the system rescue cd (systemrescuecd) http://www.sysresccd.org/ and includes partimage (a sort of dd that skips blank sectors)
It currently only supports phys SCSI to virt SCSI.

All you need to do is :

1) Install VMware Server
2) Create VM drivers (by copying files during the install vmwtools process)
3) Create a sysresccd helper VM with a storage disk and target disk
4) Boot helper VM into sysresccd
5) mkfs on storage disk /dev/sda
6) mkdir /mnt/store
7) mount /dev/sda /mnt/store
8) run partimaged
9) Boot phys PC
10) Install VMware SCSI drivers
11) Reboot phys PC into sysresccd
12) run partimage
13) On helper VM run partimage to restore to target disk
14) Shutdown helper VM
15) Disconnect target disk
16) Create new VM
17) Connect to target disk
18) Boot virtualized machine !

This was first published in February 2006

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