Comments on: Convert Virtualbox .vdi to VMware .vmdk

By: peterschen

peterschen — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:41:31 +0000

Hi Marek1721,

The initial method is not a 100% true. But if you read the comments closely you’ll find out that the issue is already addressed. Anyhoo, thanks for your link!

Cheers
Chris

By: Marek1712

Marek1712 — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:05:36 +0000

The method posted here doesn’t work. I too got: “Operating System not found”.
If you want to convert .vdi to .vmdk, you have to transcode .vdi file to .raw format using vboxmanage.
Everything’s explained here:
http://www.liucougar.net/blog/archives/118

By: Somnius

Somnius — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:18:02 +0000

It’s quite useful

Thank you!

By: wow gold

wow gold — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:47:59 +0000

Wonderful article. I been looking for one on a similar note. I guess you always have something up your sleeve.

By: Alastair Montgomery

Alastair Montgomery — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:23:15 +0000

Apparently VirtualBox OVF files are not quite standard, the VMWare OVF tool forum has a newly created thread on converting them.
http://twurl.nl/gqxcc0

By: Alastair Montgomery

Alastair Montgomery — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:31:45 +0000

Posted a question to Twitter about OVF on VMWare, got this page as a response.
It is an OVF import/ export tool from VMWare might be worth a look.
http://twurl.nl/yhnv7g

By: Alastair Montgomery

Alastair Montgomery — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:45:38 +0000

Exported the OVK file okay from VirtualBox but VMWare converter crashes on my PC when I try to import it. Agghhh did seemed to simple to be true.

There is an option in VMWare converter to import an existing (running) machine, I think it might be possible to point it at your running VirtualBox VM. Hopefully it would not be able to tell it is not a physical machine.

Another option for Windows guest OS, would be to run the VMConvertor on the guest and get it to convert the local machine. I didn’t have enough free disk space on my VM to attempt this option.

By: peterschen

peterschen — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:54:15 +0000

Nice. Keep us posted. At the time when I wrote this tutorial this was not possible but I guess a lot changed in the meantime.

By: Alastair Montgomery

Alastair Montgomery — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:47:34 +0000

Things have moved on this might be easy now.

With VirtualBox 2.2.2 you can export your machine as an Appliance using the Open Virtualization Format (OVF)

The VMWare vCenter Converter 4.0.1 (free download) imports OVF Appliances.

I am just exporting my VM from VirtualBox at the moment to see if it works “like it says on the tin”

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 05:55:43 +0000

Oh, one more thing; how to use the script:

vdi2vmdk source.vdi dest.vmdk

Note that it seems that qemu-img likes to be in the working directory of the destination, so if the directories are different, run:

cd /path/to/dest
vdi2vmdk /path/to/source.vdi desk.vmdk