Physical to Virtual (P2V) Windows 10 with VirtualBox

We explain how to turn a physical installation of Windows 10 into a VirtualBox VM, using Disk2VHD and solving a problem with the cloning process of the EFI partition.

[@gvegito0]

You saved multiple lives with this! Great video and amazingly so much detailed, thanks a lot!!!!!!

[@cgabrielac]

This is an EXCELLENT video covering all the corners of virtualization, congrats Raneri!!! you did an amazing job Thank you very much it's very helpful

[@shadowics]

Thanks. I was about to give up on making a VM out of my old Win 10 box, but this was exactly what I needed.

[@Th3WatchR]

With your instructions I was able to get my virtual machine finally up and running . Thank You!

[@leesweeney206]

Thanks Riccardo. Excellent video. Very easy to follow. Straight to the point and very helpful. Greatly appreciated :)

[@johnwzimmer405]

Thanks Raneri - Just what I was looking for - clear - easy to follow.

[@Neilrahc]

Most excellent video Raneri - Disk2vhd + EFI boot partition repair + recreate. Such a clear coverage of diskpart, bootrec, bcdboot - a tutorial inside a tutorial. Thank you!

[@OldSkoolF]

THE BEST instructions and most thorough... Grazie mille!

[@gerrymatthews299]

Thank you Riccardo! This is a great tutorial video! Very easy to follow and understand. Grazie mille!

[@numnuts398]

Thanks for making this video, it is awesome. I now have a backup of my original OS in VM which is great. I can now rebuild my unit. Thanks once again!!

[@SidebandSamurai]

Great Job on your video. You really helped me out on my project. Keep up the good work.

[@chm1980]

Thank you very much, great video, great content, you rock!

[@skbar]

Great! Thank you, this video resolved all my problems

[@pan3da4]

Thank you! :D Good video, you saved my life.

[@navarrodba]

Cooooool!!!!! Thanks for sharing and congrats for the great job.

[@louislee5792]

Thanks a lot for the detailed instruction!

[@jpg6852]

Excellent ! I try and it works perfectly, even with the "acces denied" trick. Good video

[@rusticagenerica]

Very valuable tutorial. May God bless you.

[@NomadicDmitry]

Thank you! It's interesting, I was not aware of Disk2VHD utility. I thought it was only possible by using the command line.

[@ilovesandyboy]

Keep up the good work.

[@scater1230000]

I spent all day trying to figure out how to do this by reading forms, guides, and watching other videos on how to fix this. I've been working on this all day for work. Then I found this video and I got it working without a hitch. Thanks Raneri!

[@KelticLad]

thanks got it to load on first boot, well explained tutorial thank you very much

[@hayleecs4223]

Thank you bud, this contributed to forensics lol

[@srinidhibs]

Thank you so much!

[@xaptronic]

This worked for me without having to download the windows ISO and repair anything. I was dual booted (using Grub bootloader), I pulled the disk image to an external hard drive, setup a machine in virtual box pointed at the resulting VHD and booted directly into windows 10.

[@Gamingking-wt7zg]

TYSM YOU SAVED MY LIFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE CONGRATS YOU EARNED 1+ SUB AND 1+ LIKE

[@developerkoray]

Thanks Raneri :)

[@p3pillo]

Thanks so much!

[@Drewbernetes]

I think my fave bit of this video is where you've gone to the effort of bluring out your VM names in the left hand list, but not in the details section so we can all see the names anyway :-D

[@RiccardoRaneri]

LOL! Oh, well... they weren't a serious secret :D

[@tadeubotelho4410]

Thank you!

[@MT-ng3zh]

thank you

[@djdmen181]

Great Video But Worked for me on Win10 without trouble. No need for workaround.

[@whocares1175]

Grazie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@vladi_g]

Спасибо!

[@itcave]

this worked! unfortunately windows is now saying that it isn't "activated" . and i need to buy a new copy of windows. is there anyway to make this work with out buying a new copy or windows?

[@bennguyen1313]

Can a V2P be done with WinXP? Or are the tools (Disk2VHD, bcdboot, gimagex, etc) totally different? I have an XP VirtualBox, that I'd like to image an external drive with.. can the image be transferred such that I can then boot/run XP from the external drive using a USB/SATA cable?

[@jeffbjorge]

Will this work to create a virtual machine from a physical Windows Server 2012r2?

[@j4kl648]

That’s Easy thanks u

[@manashroom]

i get the error "unable to open disk 0" when i click create... anyone know whats it means? windows 8.1.. thanks

[@batata1979]

5 year old video but very useful! 2 questions: 1- Can the same process be done with an existing installation on a 2nd drive? 2- Can I still boot my machine through that drive without complications or data loss? Thank you :)

[@tirlipimpom]

And I am struggling with trying to do the same thing with a Windows 8.

[@rg-ic2gw]

Great video but it´s not working for me, i have the vhd, i have the virtual machine and if i run it theres a message with no boot media found, i turn it off, go to settings and check uefi option, i turn it on again and there´s nothing, just nothing but a black screen, i attach the windows.iso, and try to restart and the VM do nothing, i turn it off and turn it on again and there´s the same black screen, no error message, no nothing i am super lost

[@DiyintheGhetto]

Hello, How can I go the other way around taking it off Virtual to a real PC?

[@alexoja2918]

How do i activate magic of cinema to make it go faster?

[@tirlipimpom]

Hello. I have troubles with executing this. The Windows system I am trying to virtualize was actually on a dual-boot machine with a Linux Mint 19. When I try "bootrec /fixboot", I have an error message "Acces denied" !

[@tirlipimpom]

So, Raneri, in your tutorial, you give a way to solve the "Acces denied" problem. But I found that in the meantime, in the new releases of the Windows ISO installation images, there is another way, faster : answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/windows-10-bootrec-fixboot-access-is-denied/747c4180-7ff3-4bc2-b6cc-81e572d546df

[@akshara197]

What will be MAC ID of VM?! Will it be the MAC ID of original system?

[@pepeshopping]

Wow. So much trouble. Just use the P2V software or even a backup sw with different hardware restore!

[@xaptronic]

What sorcery is this! The OS that then runs itself in a VM!

[@DA-lg8bk]

Hi, its a great instruction video. However, I am stuck in the last step.

[@DA-lg8bk]

I am using a German version so not sure what has to be the command

[@bacilioramos8557]

OK!!!

[@shanidbakkar]

At fix boot, I receive ELEMENT NOT FOUND

[@fanmultrau22]

Me says element not found on bootrec /fixboot :(

[@SRN42069]

Same found a fix>?

[@fanmultrau22]

@@SRN42069 no its pc fault you need to buy another ram! I buyed and worked idk for you

[@Basementkid-music]

hahaha what a joke!!! (not your video) i was trying yesterday the whole time and nearly did go nutz because id didnt worked... now today i found your video and was so satisfied to try it out so i did.. i added the vhd like you did and made my first startup. expecting the same error as you mentioned when you try to start. but then the machine just worked! hahaha wtf xD i dont get it xD

[@DaK1ng]

Thank you! :D Good video, you saved my life.