I recently helped my wife set up her new work computer. I could not do everything; the IT guy had to come in and add it to the domain, and she installed various essentials like Minesweeper (j/k, i think it was Photoshop).
Being a good geek, I intend to have a good image of that computer now that its set up.
So, I practiced on my laptop tonight.
Step 1: Back up the machine.
Hook up external Hard Drive
Boot off Hiren’s Boot Disk
Basically following http://sir-sherwin.blogspot.com/2011/04/disk-imaging-using-acronis-true-image.html
(except that I used Seagate Disk Wizard Something Something with Acronis support)
2.5 hours later, I have several .tib files (partitioned into 4.7g chunks)
For reference, the laptop had 55G of used HD space.
Step 2: Play with Backup
Attached external Hard Drive to my big computer
Downloaded http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/
Started to convert the .tib file into a vmware image
There were a lot of options.. i ended up hydrating to a 80G virtual drive, and got to choose the partitioning scheme.
1.5 hours later, I have a vmware image i can run.
Step 3: See Laptop living in VM on big computer
Left = Original; Right = VM
There’s a few problems with drivers.. to do it perfectly, I would sysprep the machine…
It definitely validates the backup, though.
Just ’cause I could.
Yep, life is good.
