Convert Hyper V images to Virtual box

Question

I need to change my client OS from Windows 2008 to Windows 7. I therefore need to convert all of my HyperV images to Virtual Box.

What is the best way to do this? Or is there a way to run HyperV on Windows 7?

Solution 1

Virtualbox does actually support importing VHD file, unfortunately this is only for VHD's created with Virtual PC, not Hyper-V, which adds some additional information to the VHD. Some people have successfully got VHD Vm's to boot by ensuring the VM in Virtualbox uses an IDE rather than SATA controller.

I'm not aware of anyway to convert VHD's straight into virtual box, however you can convert VHD files into VMWare VMDK files (using tools like Starwind V2V) which Virtualbox is then able to use.

Solution 2

This did the trick for me:

Step 1: Clone from HyperV disk to VirtualBox VDI disk

VBoxManage clonehd input.vhdx output.vdi --format VDI

Step 2: I added this new disk as an IDE drive ("PIIX4") as suggested here. (SATA drive also works)

Step 3: Enabled System->Motherboard->EFI Setting for this VM.

Comments

[Sean Earp]

You just saved me a TON of frustration. Thanks Sam... I kept getting bluescreens with the SATA and SCSI controllers in Virtualbox (with my VHD created in Hyper-V), but the IDE controller worked like a charm.

[Arioch 'The]

I wonder if Microsoft Convert-VHD can - as a by-effect - reduce virtual disks to "bare" VPC VHD technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848454.aspx

[cube45]

I had a .vhdx virtual hard drive (HV on windows 10) to convert to a .vdi file. Using that command, I could convert the drive. However, the hard drive is now at the state it was at the time of the snapshot I made in Hyper-V. But then I had an issue with creating the Virtual machine. I followed your steps to enable EFI ("no bootable medium found" otherwise) and falled into the EFI shell. I "exit" ed it, chose "boot from file", selected "shimx64" to boot. Then, followed the steps here : askubuntu.com/a/573672/650725 : echo '\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi' > /boot/efi/startup.nsh as root

[tim687]

@cube45 you are an absolute hero. This comment should be added to the answer!