Windows 7 Physical to Hyper-V Virtual Machine

Preface

This guide provides an important step missing from any articles I could find on converting from a Windows 7 physical machine to a Hyper-V (or other) virtual machine. Most guides cover the easy part (getting the physical computer into the hypervisor such as Hyper-V), but fail to address how to get the machine to boot when the physical machine is not using an Intel PCI IDE controller for the root (C:) hard drive.

Note: See the Note on Activation if you need the physical machine online at the same time as the virtual machine, or you do not have a retail product key.

Get the machine into the hypervisor (aka the easy part)

Because other articles cover all of these options in detail, we don’t talk much about this step in this guide.

Option 1: Use Disk2vhd

• Available from Microsoft via their documentation portal. Instructions are provided on that portal.
• Create a Generation 1 Hyper-V VM with the converted image as boot drive.

Option 2: Create a system image and restore it

This is quite straightforward, so this is just a quick list of steps.

1. On the physical machine go the ‘Control Panel’
2. Use the ‘Backup and Restore’ tool
   • The important part here is to check the ‘Create system image’ box.
   • The rest of the backup is entirely optional for this guide.
3. On the machine with the hypervisor (we’re assuming Hyper-V for this guide), create an empty virtual hard drive big enough to hold all the contents of the system image disk. E.g. New-VHD -Path BackupDisk.vhd -Dynamic -SourceDisk 2 -Size 1TB in PowerShell (assuming the drive with the backup image is Number 2 in the output of Get-Disk. and you want the virtual size of the disk to be 1TB, but have the physical size be that of the actual data).
4. Create a Generation 1 Hyper-V virtual machine with an empty virtual hard drive and Windows 7 installation media attached as a CD/DVD drive.
5. In the virtual machine’s settings add the backup VHD as a second IDE hard drive.
6. Boot the installation media.
7. Choose to repair rather than install Windows 7.
8. Choose to restore from system image previously created.
9. This will take some time and when done you will have a new virtual machine with the contents of the physical machine’s hard drive.

Note: Those alert among you might have noticed that the command New-VHD -Path BackupDisk.vhd -Dynamic -SourceDisk 2 -Size 1TB would allow you to create the image directly from the physical machine’s hard disk if you attached said disk as a secondary disk to the machine running the command.

Option 3: Make a block-level copy and convert raw image to VHDX

This needs knowledge of Linux system-level commands/tools or you can find a guide elsewhere.

Boot to a Linux rescue CD

Such as System Rescue

Clone the hard drive bit for bit (block-level copy)

Assuming a storage disk mounted on /mnt and assuming the physical hard disk is /dev/sda:

E.g. dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/backup-image.img bs=1M status=progress conv=fsync

Convert the image to VHDX using qemu-img

E.g. qemu-img convert -p -f raw -O vhdx backup-image.img p2v-hd.vhdx

Create a Generation 1 Hyper-V VM

With the converted image as boot drive.

Launch VM using the image (if you are lucky)

It just works.

If the virtual machine fails to boot

This is the part no one tells you.

Using installation media (e.g. Windows 7 Installation CD)

1. Create a Generation 1 Hyper-V virtual machine with the hard drive image you created as the primary hard drive.
2. Boot the installation media.
3. Choose to repair rather than install Windows 7.
4. (Likely not needed): Check the items from Microsoft’s guide for inaccessible boot device

Ensure PCIIDE device service is set to start on boot

1. Using the the above Microsoft guide for inaccessible boot device, in the OfflineSystemHive and in the correct control set (this guide will show ControlSet001, see Step 10 in the guide for your case) expand Services
2. Check that the PCIIDE key exists and that it has a value named Start set to 0.
3. If not, set the Start for key PCIIDE to 0.
4. If PCIIDE does not exist:
   1. Get mergeide.reg from ProxMox wiki: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/File:Mergeide.zip
   2. Rename SYSTEM in mergeide.reg to OfflineSystemHive
   3. Import mergeide.reg into the registry (while in repair mode on the target virtual machine)
   4. Go to step 2
5. Try rebooting the virtual machine into Windows (i.e. normal boot).
6. With luck you are now in Windows 7.

Alternative

Theoretically you could enable PCIIDE using chntpw from System Rescue or other Linux boot disks.

Appendix A: A note on activation

1. If you do not have a retail product key for Windows, or you need to keep the physical machine active in addition to the newly minted virtual machine, before you boot the virtual machine, make sure that you do not have it network connected.
2. Before network connecting the virtual machine execute the command slmgr /upk. This removes the product key from the VM’s copy of Windows.
3. You will need to obtain a legal copy of a retail version of Windows (in my use case, Windows 7 Profession 32-bit). For old versions of Windows you can find legal copies on sources like eBay. Avoid sellers providing only product keys (that’s not genuine windows). If you are concerned about legalities and proof thereof, you need to purchase a new copy of the full retail Windows installation media which is sealed with the original COA sticker and product key.
4. Activate Windows: TBD

Appendix B: Why

1. For Hyper-V Gen 1 virtual machines the virtual machine uses a virtual Intel PCI IDE controller for the primary hard drive by default.
2. If the physical machine has a different controller (different manufacturer or different technology) then, because Windows 7 minimizes the number of active device drivers after installation, the driver for the Hyper-V controller is not active and the primary hard drive is not accessible to Windows. Consequently the boot fails.
3. If you use a SCSI controller for a Gen 1 machine, use a Gen 2 machine, or are using another hypervisor which is not using PCIIDE emulated controller then these instructions will need to be modified to activate the controller in use. If you need to install a driver that can be done as well, but is more involved¹.