0

I've just bought a new PC. My old one has 16GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. I want to turn it into an NAS server. I have put Windows Server 2022 into a virtual machine, and configured everything to my liking except the shared folder and IP address. I tried to config everything I could to as close as possible to the actual specs of my PC. How can I make this VM (VMware Workstation 17 player) into an OS on real hardware? I would set everything up again, but without thinking I have put many hours of scripting into the VM...
Please can someone help?
I have tried this question: Convert a Windows VM to physical partition - the tools offered there (Norton Ghost, etc...) have been discontinued

e7eth
  • 72
  • Welcome. What research have you done regarding this and what have you tried? Please EDIT your question to add this information to your question, making it more complete and clear. – music2myear Nov 27 '23 at 19:12
  • 2
    Does this answer your question? Convert a Windows VM to physical partition – music2myear Nov 27 '23 at 19:12
  • @music2myear I was about to flag the same duplicate but then realized everything there is very outdated. – ChanganAuto Nov 27 '23 at 19:15
  • Or try this: https://superuser.com/questions/114445/is-it-possible-to-convert-virtual-machines-to-physical-environments for VirtualBox VDI file -- not sure if it's of use for VMWare. – DrMoishe Pippik Nov 27 '23 at 19:27
  • The answers in the first Q&A mention the long "gone" Norton Ghost and it precedes UEFI. UEFI mode is what you need for any Windows since 8.x in any UEFI based machine. Both VMware and Virtualbox allow UEFI mode installations but that's not the default. – ChanganAuto Nov 27 '23 at 19:31
  • The highest voted answer, suggests two programs, have you ruled out both of those programs? I see no reason why that answer still does not answer this question – Ramhound Nov 27 '23 at 19:49
  • There exist more similar programs than just these two, for me that answer is till good. – harrymc Nov 27 '23 at 20:44
  • 1
    Any cloning tool will do, even the free Clonezilla, but that's not the problem. Cloning to a file is trivial as well as extracting it to the bare metal. The problem then is booting. It may be possible by repairing the boot with Windows installation media but I have no experience with Windows server. The radically different hardware will likely be a challenge too and then there's the licensing part. All things considered, I think testing it in a VM was a good idea but doing what the OP wants may end up taking more time than redoing the installation on bare metal. – ChanganAuto Nov 27 '23 at 21:26
  • You can convert to VMware and use VMware tools to convert V to P. I think that still works. – John Nov 27 '23 at 21:55
  • Does this answer your question? Is it possible to convert virtual machines to physical environments? – Toto Nov 28 '23 at 09:12

1 Answers1

1

I have used clonezilla in the past.

Connect the hard drive or ssd from the new PC via USB.

Modifiy the vmware settings add the USB storage, from above, to said VM and make it boot from the clonezilla.iso

Since the virtual storage and real storage should both be visable to the VM, just clone 1 drive to the other drive.

Boot from clonezilla

expert

disk to disk (or is it device to device)

After cloning is complete shutdown the VM.

Connect the storage back into the phyical PC and boot from it.

If it doesn't work, you may want to sysprep the orginal, and then reclone it.

cybernard
  • 14,007