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Is it possible to boot windows off an external hard drive but in a VM

Just Stefan
By Just Stefan
in Storage Devices
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My mom's Hp 625 broke and I put the hard drive in my external USB Drive enclosure and I wondered if it's possible to boot a VM off that drive?

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3 minutes ago, Boev2703 said:

My mom's Hp 625 broke and I put the hard drive in my external USB Drive enclosure and I wondered if it's possible to boot a VM off that drive?

Directly no however VMWare does have the ability to create a VM from a physical disk. I've never tried it personally so I can't help you with instructions.

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Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS |

 

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1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

Directly no however VMWare does have the ability to create a VM from a physical disk. I've never tried it personally so I can't help you with instructions.

Do I need VMware Player or Workstation?

 

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Just now, Boev2703 said:

Do I need VMware Player or Workstation?

 

I've seen the option in Workstation, not sure about Player.

Main Rig:-

Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS |

 

Server:-

Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0)

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What version of VMware do I need and where should I look for the option?

 

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7 minutes ago, Boev2703 said:

What version of VMware do I need and where should I look for the option?

 

I'm running the latest version (V15). First open VMWare as Administrator then create a Custom Machine, go through the Setup Wizard (making sure to choose the correct OS that the laptop was running) until you get to the HDD screen then choose Use A Physical Disk, point it to the HDD and it SHOULD boot your existing Windows Install.

 

Just a warning though, its possible (though unlikely) that VMWare might screw up the install on the drive in some way.

 

Personally I'd image the drive first, mount the image then try and boot from that instead.

Main Rig:-

Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS |

 

Server:-

Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0)

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Thanks, it worked really well and I archived the stuff i had on there :-D

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