Jump to content

Possible to copy VMDK to a dedicated physical disk?


7 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

Hello.

I have ML 10.8.3 running in VMware Workstation 10. I downloaded the virtual image. After I installed  I  added a physical SSD to the VM, formatted it in the guest OS x,  and would like to convert the VMDK to the physical dedicated drive. As I have VMware itself installed to another SSD, but have all my VMs stored on an HDD RAID_0....... I figure the guest OS x would run faster, and I just think it would be cool, if it (the guest OS x) was installed on the dedicated SSD.

 

I have found nothing so far to say, that an OS x VMDK can be copied to a physical boot drive for the guest OS.

Will anyone tell me, is this possible?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I concur with sonic9.

 

You must use a method that can successfully copy a partition from one drive to another (as if it were in a real computer).

 

I've not looked, but there may be an OS X utility that can copy a source using a version control system, as it can be done in Windows - such that a copy of the running operating system's boot drive can be made while that OS is running, but it's not advisable.

 

Use a different OS X vm (even a full clone if you don't have another one, but...with a RENAMED OS main drive, since OS X can't easily mount two drives with the same name).

 

In VMWare you simply add a phyiscal hard drive (via the existing drive option - and it can be a partition on a physical drive).

 

Once such an arrangement is launched, OS X sees the physical drive and your source VMDK drive as if both were real, and from there you could use the disk utility to copy the VMDK source to the physical destination.

 

The technique can work in reverse, and can be employed to use an OS X VM to diagnose, recover or otherwise manage a physical drive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Yeah use carbon copy cloner it's the easiest way, or if you like open source look up how to do it with clonezilla.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...