How to Convert a Physical Machine into a VMware Virtual Machine

For detailed product information, please visit the BackupChain home page.

Please first have a look How to Convert a Physical Machine to a Virtual Machine P2V on Hyper-V before proceeding.

Setting up the VM on hypervisors other than Hyper-V is very similar.

Note, this step only needs to be done once. Once you have the VM in place, BackupChain can replace the virtual disk in subsequent backup cycles automatically. When you need the VM in a disaster recovery scenario, simply boot it up and it’s immediately ready to go.

You basically create a new “dummy” VM that points to the virtual disk. If EFI is necessary you need to turn it on in the VM settings.

Note: Always attach the virtual disk to an IDE controller first.

In VMware Workstation, create a new VM:

Skip the OS installation, and select a guest OS for hardware compatibility:

Then name the VM in the following screen and select the appropriate BIOS

Unlike Hyper-V, you can change this BIOS setting later if need be. Then skip through the next pages, assign LAN and memory and attach the virtual disk to an IDE controller:

Then select “use an existing disk”

And select the virtual disk created by BackupChain:

The VM is now done and may be booted. In case the VM boots with BSOD you may need to change the boot settings as explained in the section above, page 144.