VirtualBox & Native VMWare .vmdk images (IDE only!)

I am trialling the three main Virtual Machine client/workstation options, mainly for SharePoint 2010 development on the move:

The main reason for the trial was that my Windows 2008 R2 laptop won’t hibernate with the Hypervisor role enabled and Hyper-V services started… it is a server OS after all. This really bugs me as I like to “pause” my work at least once a day. VMWare Workstation is cheap enough for one license, but if I need it I might need to make the case for all our devs too… it becomes a several thousand £ decision so need to be sure the (free/cheaper) alternatives aren’t fit for purpose.

The 30 day VMWare Workstation trial passed with flying colours but thought I’d check on the latest VirtualBox offering.

I was delighted to find that my main VM which originated as a Hyper-V VM, then converted successfully using VMWare’s converter to a .vmdk image can be read natively by VirtualBox – this rocks! It means that I don’t need to worry about converting back & forth.

Just be aware that the .vmdk image must be setup as an IDE drive (not SATA!) otherwise a nasty BSOD will occur that no amount of “chkdsk /F” will resolve… phew!


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Comments

One response to “VirtualBox & Native VMWare .vmdk images (IDE only!)”

  1. Radityo

    Also ur VM hard disk could corrupted. I’ve encountered that problem before, and all my data was lost!
    Thanks, ur post enlightened me!

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