Cloning old hard drive

**quadrplax** · April 26th, 2014

Sorry, I'm nooby, I don't understand post #39, could you only put the commands to run in the code boxes? That confuses me...

**sudodus** · April 26th, 2014

Code:

ps -A|grep dd

identify the process ID number of dd
in this example 8732 (in your real life something else)

and run the command

Code:

sudo kill -USR1 8732

to get three lines of output telling you how far it has proceeded.

Edit: But it is only meaningful, while dd is running

**sudodus** · April 26th, 2014

Please explain what you want to do with the system that you extracted from the compressed dd image!

I thought that you wanted to recover some personal files, maybe documents and photos. In that case, boot a live Ubuntu system and mount the partition, that you think contains the files.

If it is a Windows system, you cannot expect that it will boot and run in another computer. Microsoft has made that impossible.

But maybe you want to do something else. It will be easier to help if you tell us what you want to do.

**quadrplax** · April 26th, 2014

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows
I want this for two reasons:
1. There are 4 or 5 nice old games and stuff on there you have to buy that I don't have the CD of
2. I have a 64-bit OS and would like to be able to run some 16-bit applications

**sudodus** · April 26th, 2014

From that link:

Disclaimer: Migration of Windows guests from a physical host into a VirtualBox VM is not supported. These instructions are provided as-is in the hope that they are helpful.

I think it is very difficult to migrate Windows installed directly into a computer into a VirtualBox system. Possible, yes, but extremely advanced, because you must make the virtual machine 'look like' the real computer.

**quadrplax** · April 26th, 2014

It provides step-by-step instructions. If there is some other way you know for me to be able to do this (use 16-bit applications and the software and the software on the PC) that would work too.

**sudodus** · April 26th, 2014

See these links, which describe something similar to what you want to do

Windows OEM disk loaded on VirtualBox
Backing up OS, programs, and system settings
Starting a used secondary hard drive
Newbie Xp and Ubuntu questions

**quadrplax** · April 26th, 2014

I don't own any unused copies of Windows, I tried using the reinstillation disk of XP and the product key said it was invalid. The only PC in my entire house I was the OEM of and have an OEM disk for is this one, Windows 7 64-bit

**sudodus** · April 27th, 2014

It is possible, but I think quite difficult. I hope you can get help from some people who have migrated Windows guests from a physical host into a VirtualBox VM (I haven't done it). Maybe it would help to start a new thread with a good descriptive title to attract those interested and capable of helping you.

Good luck

**quadrplax** · April 28th, 2014

Ok, well I don't feel like messing with this idea for another month or so right now, so I'll mark this thread as solved, and maybe I'll start another topic some time in the future.