Can I convert a mac pro to a vm image?

You checked and insured that VMware would indeed allow such?

OS X Server is the only version that allows you to virtualize OS X.

In order to run 10.6.8 to have access to PowerPC apps and Rosetta, that can be done.

But not what you propose.

1. VMware yanks Mac OS X client virtualization 'feature ... - InfoWorld

   www.infoworld.com › Virtualization › Virtualization Report
   Nov 28, 2011 – Fusion 4.1 gave life to Leopard and Snow Leopard client virtualization, but VMware quickly ended it again with the Fusion 4.1.1 upgrade.

2. Paragon Virtualization Manager for Mac OS X - PARAGON Software ...

   www.paragon-software.com/home/vm-mac/
   Paragon Virtualization Manager for Mac OS X - Overview.

3. Virtualizing Mac OS X Lion - For Dummies

   www.dummies.com/.../macs-os-x/Mac-OS-X...Mac-OS-X.../Virtualizatio...
   If you're interested in virtualization with Mac OS X Lion or OS X Lion Server, Dummies.com can give you some technical help to get you going.

4. VMware KB: Creating a virtual machine running Mac OS X Server

   kb.vmware.com/kb/2005793
   Rating: 4 - 7 votes Dec 31, 2012 – You cannot create a Mac OS X Client virtual machine for OS X 10.6 and earlier. Apple does not allow these Client OSes to be virtualized.

Hi,

I want to be as polite as possible, but...

How is it that you can determine if virtualization is necessary or not?

I have determined that this is necessary to accomplish my goals, which shouldn't need to enumerate.

I am perfectly capable of transferring files, email, chats, and other user files. Also, not all my files are in the "user" directory, another bad assumption in your answer.

but, i digress...

So, the question, and the only question is... How can I run a VM (Mac OS X) off a physical drive (refer to previous email for details)?

I recently saw a blog or something that said it was possible with a few tweeks.

From a technical perspective, running off a physical hard drive would only require a bit more code to work as well as a virtual drive. Maybe I am missing something (that's me being humble, don't assume you know more).

Thanks for your efforts.

So, does anyone have a better, more appropo answer?

<eof>

Hi,

Thanks, Hatter, for trying to answer my question.

Is it true that you can only do a mac vm on the server edition? I saw others making that statement.

but, I thought I did this already... on my standard mountain lion macbook pro 2009.

I will have to try it to convince myself.

The intended vm and the current os will both be the latest version of os x, mountain lion.

I will post after i try this.

thanks.

ok, I just found something...

http://anders.com/cms/385/VMWare.Fusion/Mac/Laptop.Hard.Drive

I would be interested in any comments. Don't know if this has everything needed to accomplish this.

be back later.

Just confirmed that 10.7 and 10.8 os's are able to support a mac os x virtual machine... i think they said that 10.6 (snow leopard, not sure) required the server edition to do this... this changed as of 10.7 and on.

Also, vmware does not support using an external hard drive as primary hard drive within a VM.

of course, that doesn't mean it can't be done.

:-)

<eof>

Hi ronin2010,

No I (unfortunately) didn't get anywhere with this.

I have a MBP with an SSD and HD installed. The SSD is my system disk and the HD my data (losely speaking).

I want to take my original/old OS X build (which I have on another HD which is not installed in my MBP) and have that available in a VM.

I'm not running OS X server and I have successfully installed a clean copy of OS X in VMware, that's no problem. But it's not giving me what I want, i.e. a VM with my old data.

ronin2010, I'm with you here I do need the ability to convert a 'real' OS X system into a VM (just like you easily can with Windows using the free VMware converter utility).

Heathy65,

You don't need the server version of the software anymore, according to vmware.

are you up on the current OS X, and using VMWare?

I think the one reply to my message (the 2nd reply) had a way to do that in one of the links.

you and I need "almost" the same thing, but you just want to convert your old drive... I want to use the HD directly.

How big is your "old hard drive" (i.e. how much data)?

Hi ronin2010, yup I realise that re. not needing the server version, as you do.

Yup, we both (almost) need to the same thing. My old SSD is a 120GB, in fact I've backed it up into a sparse-bundle, which is just over 80GB in size.

So ideally I need something to convert my sparse-bundle into a working VM image.

I would also appreciate some direction on this topic. In my case, I'm setting up an ESXi box on an old Mac Pro and need to convert some physical Mac Mini servers (10.6 - 10.8) to virtual machines. VMware does have a very nice tool for doing P2V conversion of Windows & Linux VMs, but it doesn't work for Mac (of course). I thought there might be a way to convert a physical Mac to a VM for use in Fusion. I have a process for taking a Fusion VM and making it compatible with ESX. So if I can get a physical Mac into Fusion as a VM I'd be good to go.

I found a solution (well I found an excellent blog by someone else who found a solution, so credit to them!)...

http://fortysomethinggeek.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/convert-physical-mac-into-vm-gu est.html

It's actually very simple.

1. Backup the physical machine's disk into sparsebundle (i.e. the machine you want to convert to a VM)

2. Create a new/blank VM within VMware/Parallels

3. Add a 2nd disk to the new VM (big enough to fit the size of the source machine)

4. Use SuperDuper! or CCC to restore the sparsebundle image to the 2nd disk

5. Reconfigure the VM to boot from the 2nd disk (I had to delete my 1st disk since Parallels kept connecting to it even though it was set to be discommented).

As per the comments in the blog you may have to reconfigure the VMs specific OS X version if the new VM doesn't match the source machine.

Cheers Ian

Thanks muchly for the posting!

I've also had success with the fortysomethinggeek solution - except that I had to combine that process along with a few command-line items to get mine to boot in Fusion 6, and it doesn't seem to be a fully functional solution - ie. the res is stuck at 1024x768 is the main one I've noticed so far.

So the above holds, plus an additional step in my case:

4a. Use the "touch" command from the Server boot to get the cloned 10.6 machine across. Also there's a step to include a new XML file that will enable system updates. Details here - starting from halfway through the instructions (am sure these are elsewhere also):

http://www.nyayapati.com/srao/2013/06/installing-snow-leopard-in-vmware-on-mount ain-lion/

But ye gods this is more difficult than it should be. If Apple is going to decree that there's a whole bunch of apps and systems that are no longer required by the majority of the world (and therefore they exclude / cease to support them), then they should at least be nice enough to relax their licensing so that us poor ******** (who are no longer supported because we happen to be on the wrong side of Apple's vision of the future) can virtualise our old environments - and in their entirety rather than needing to re-install all our apps etc.

Apple is doing well to get many new fans, but it's not doing a great deal to keep the old ones.

Aha - res issue seems to have been linked to a volume issue - repaired via other boot drive using Apple's Disk Utility and res is adjustable again. Still having some issues doing file copies but that may have to do with the source data and/or Finder's inbuilt copy controls (which are a bit amateur with very poor error messaging etc for an advanced operating system) rather than the virtual machine.

This has been a long journey for what should have been a relately simple (in this day and age of virtualisation) transfer to a new machine!

Anyways - thanks for the forum people for the assistance!

DISASTER!!!

Paragon Software's "virtualization Manager" is COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE with Mavericks. IT HANGS THE BOOT. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE IT ON MAVERICKS.

Fortunately I could reboot in Safe Mode and uninstall it.