How to convert flat raw disk image to vmdk for virtualbox or vmplayer?

Question

I have some old images of old Linux filesystems in flat file format. they can be used by Bochs, but I need to run them with Virtual Box. Virtual Box cannot use images in this format, so I need to convert these images from flat file to .vmdk file format. Is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

First, install QEMU. On Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu, run:

$ apt-get install qemu 

Then run the following command:

$ qemu-img convert -O vmdk imagefile.dd vmdkname.vmdk 

I’m assuming a flat disk image is a dd-style image. The convert operation also handles numerous other formats.

For more information about the qemu-img command, see the output of

$ qemu-img -h 

Answer 2

Since the question mentions VirtualBox, this one works currently:

VBoxManage convertfromraw imagefile.dd vmdkname.vmdk --format VMDK 

Run it without arguments for a few interesting details (notably the --variant flag):

VBoxManage convertfromraw