[libvirt-users] convert physical windows 8 machine to virtual machine

arnaud gaboury arnaud.gaboury at gmail.com
Thu May 15 09:34:41 UTC 2014


I dual boot w8 and Arch Linux. Both are on the same ssd drive (each OS
have of course a partition).
Now I would like to virtualize w8 and run it inside Arch Linux using
KVM/QEMU and Libvirt.
w8 has already been installed on a ntfs partition. As it is brand new,
it will not be difficult to reinstall it on a image.raw

I have been reading some articles and found myself a little bit confused.

1- Some articles point to driver issues on the windows size, which
could lead to an unusable OS. Is this a real issue ? Workaround found
is to uninstall IDE/SATA driver in w8 and then install
general/universal driver.

2- I can of course copy my w8 partition to a image.raw in my second
HD, then create the VM. But in this case, after time, I will not have
the same w8 on my ssd and my VM. What I am looking for is a VM that
will ever replicate w8 on ssd. In this case, I guess I need to
reinstall w8 on a raw qemu-img then use this image for the VM. Am I
correct ? Is there anyother solution ?
Is it worth keeping the raw image on the ssd for better performance,or
moving the image to the other HD will make no difference?

3- Most of the reading talk about virtualise a physical windows using
Virtualbox or VMware, which I certainly don't want. I would appreciate
any good pointer for the overall set-up.


Thank you in advance for hints, tips and advices.




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